Setbacks

I blogged a while back about having post traumatic stress - or being utterly knackered after it all being a bit full on for rather a long time - if you are after a less dramatic title.  The highly effective cure for this has been Doing Nothing, something which I have found distressing as I am very much one for Doing A Lot Of Things All At Once.

Still, I've been good and rested and rested and made plans for day which include 1. Drive Children to school, 2. Pick children up, 3. Feed children takeaway chinese.

And things have been going well, I've been slowly adding more things to my day; writing, cooking, little bit of gardening...

But life, being what it is, has tossed a few things my way in the last couple of days, which have reminded me of how badly I'm able to handle stress at the moment.

1. Twitter account hacked.
I fell for a phishing scam.  Yes. Rather embarrassing.  She who has been nimbly negotiating the internet since its earliest days, voluntarily handed over her twitter username and password to hackers.  Not particularly serious in itself.  But I changed my password too late, they were already in my account and used it to roll the scam out to all my followers via direct message.  It being a clever scam and me having (it seems) a reputation as someone who isn't idiot enough to invite hackers into her twitter account, a LOT of people then fell for the scam as well.
I spent the day stressed and mortified, also I got sore patch on my forehead from banging it on my desk.

2. Trouble on the school front with Miss 5
Miss 5 has taken up pinching other children. This has upset people.  It has also upset me.  It led to the school requesting extra support with regards to Miss 5 - a move which I completely support.  Yesterday I set about organising this extra support.  Or trying to.
It took three hours of phone calls.
And it was only after I completely lost my rag with a child psychologist on the phone, that things started being taken seriously.  After some great advice, I was told we needed a referral from a pediatrician before we could set up an appointment, as various boxes need to be ticked.  Rang the pediatrician. He said we needed a referral from the psychologist before we could set up an appointment.
It was 3.30pm.  I poured myself a glass of wine.

These two things have drained me.  We did eventually get an appointment with the pediatrician sorted out, so its all good.  But today I am feeling brain dead.  I look back a few years, when I was working and had small babies and writing novels, deadlines, pressure and juggling, and realise how exhausted I am now.  A bit of drama over Twitter (ffs) and getting entangled in the healthcare system and I'm back to pottering about the house like an old lady.

So its back to my three amigos... rest, fruit, vitamins.

sigh.

Putting Wheels Back On

What with conferences, a plethora of kids parties and school-y stuff thus far August has lurched along with much of my hard won organisation flushing itself down the toilet.  What has surprised/dismayed/stunned (pick one or all) me the most is how fast the wheels fell off.

I  was out-of-the-house busy from Wednesday to Sunday, missed making meal plans and shopping on Thursday. This led to three nights of take-away, everyone buying their lunches, scrounging to feed people over the weekend, and a heavy reliance on the egg pile in the fridge - which was great, but when you've not had time to make bread... sigh.

In my defence I tried to do the shopping on Sunday. Miss 6 had a party down in Mosman and I optimistically took myself to Mosman IGA.  Ah ha. Ha, ha, ha.  The. Prices.

I know they change the prices depending on the supermarket location but this was ridiculous.  In the end I bought the ingredients for dinner (spag bol), some orange juice (Miss 4 has mouth ulcers, poor little mite, so am upping vit C) and some teabages (Nerada, not even the fancy pants Twinings ones - that were priced at $15.99, and are $9.99 in our Coles) and the whole lot set me back $54.

So, due to all the take-away and unplanned spending the budget has blown out.  Thank goodness for Hubs who diligently kept the washing ticking over - though now there's a gigantic a clean clothes pile.  No surface of the house is clear, and the kitchen is a disgrace.

Been to Coles this morning, and right now I am multi-tasking writing this and cleaning and redesigning websites, plus I've got an extra kid-free hour up my sleeve today. So am glueing the wheels back on.  Slowly. And with much effort.  Much as I enjoy being around people, I always find it really energy sapping, and today I'm tired and want to snug in bed, reading all the Mills&Boons I picked up at the conference.  Yawn. Not be to though.

One thing the few days of chaos has reminded me of, is how I admire Mothers Who Work - full time, part time, anytime, anywhere.  I mean, yes, I work - writing and homemaking - but its flexible, and I have a high degree of freedom.  I do not have the pressure of working away from home, and ladies who do... I salute you.

:)

Me: What are you drawing?
Miss 4: Its abstract art Mummy. *Rolls eyes.*

Am twittering wheels-back-on-day. @caitlynnicholas

Doing It All

Its been a tough tough week in the Caitlyn Nicholas household.  Lots of things up in the air, masses of uncertainty, kids ratty due to change in routine from school to holidays, house in upheaval (ie messy) and my routine totally screwed due to the kids being home - this basically means bread isn't being made, lunch is junk food, dinner is late, veges are frozen peas if you're lucky and instead of writing in the evening I'm collapsing in an exhausted heap on the couch and eating icecream.

Breaking out of this kind of situation is always devilishly difficult.  Those bad habits that you've spent weeks changing come roaring back, worse than before. Suddenly its all too much and far far too overwhelming.

I like to think that I'm an expert in being overwhelmed.  I manage it on a stunningly regular basis.  Stunningly.  Just when I scrabble myself a centimeter of breathing space, there I go, filling it up with things.

On a completely unrelated note: The chinese word for things is 东西 (pronounced dongxi), on their own the first character means East and the second West.  Its always been one of my fave Chinese words. East West = Things. Neat huh?

Anyway, back to being overwhelmed.  I've seen in a couple of blogs lately women talking about how full their lives are and how they get all tangled up in the having and the being.  As in Having It All and Being It All.

The first blog post I saw was Eat at Dixibelles -  where Dixibelle is discussing Is it Possible To Do It All.  My hard won answer to that is an emphatic NO. I tried to have it all, and be it all, and do it all.  I then burnt out, in such a state of exhaustion that eighteen months later I am still recovering. There is no such thing as balance when you are trying to do it all, and there is no way TO balance doing it all.

The second blog post was Down To Earth - where Rhonda has some great advice for yet another woman so overwhelmed she doesn't know which way to turn.

I nodded my head through these two posts. I knew the situations these women talked of. I'd been there and paid a very high price when I didn't slow down, lower my goals and forget about the To Dos that were not essential.

I am not saying that I've somehow magically risen above my tendency and desire to want to do it all.  However, you may have noticed - I mentioned it in passing the other week - that I quit University a few weeks ago.  Tough, tough decision.  You have no idea how tough.  But, I was overwhelmed and I have learned the hard way that when I have taken on too much I need to cut back immediately before I fall apart.  Uni was stressing me out, keeping me awake and making me snappy with the kids and hubby because I was trying to do too much.

But this time, instead of struggling on, convincing nobody I was coping, being a bitch to the family and handing in half-assed work (okay well I hadn't handed any in yet, but it would've been). I took control. Put my family and myself first and made the hard decision.

So here we see that I have learned from past fuck-uppages. I do wish, deeply wish that other women could learn from my disasters. (To the extent that I have written about it in a book called Why Didn't Anybody Tell Me - more on that another day).  But I know where they are at. I wouldn't have listened two years ago, it fact I'd  have shot them down in flames.  It is so hard when you are overwhelmed to see the light, to figure out what needs to give, to find space to breathe.

Which brings me to this week.

This time I'm overwhelmed due to things totally beyond my control. Even as I have written this post, two more money-related stresses have racked up, I've had a spat with hubby, and hubby has been offered a new job which is brilliant (totally beyond brilliant actually, but I'll do another post about it) but brings a whole new host of stresses. Also spat was resolved due to job news and top secret special surprise celebration dinner that am about to make.

So, where do look for help??

Several blogs in fact...

• The Parenting Passageway: In between the posts on homeschooling there is wonderful, amazing advice for relationships with children, husbands and family.  The parts on gentle discipline with children are full of good ideas on how to 'change the tune' if conflict with your kids has arrived at an impasse.  This blog reminds me that its my health (mental and physical) and then my children's which come first. 
• Down To Earth: Rhonda used to try and do it all, she used to be a chronic multi-tasker.  Then she made the decision to stop and live differently. Down to Earth is her story and oodles of great advice that she's learned along the way.  I too was a chronic multi-tasker, but now I just do one thing at a time, and it has made the world of difference to how I approach being a SAHM. 
• Smitten Kitchen and Not Without Salt : Whose awesome recipes get me back in the kitchen (my zen place to be - well most of the time), and make my husband love me more.
• Dooce.com : Who makes me laugh until I cry, cheer her every victory, envy her taste in just about everything, and reminds me that being open and honest about yourself is a good good thing.

So there you have it.  These blogs don't change my current situation, right now only outside forces can do that, but they do remind me that my approach to the situation is going to make all the difference in the world to how I cope with it and how the whole family comes out of it.

:)