Yeah, sure, I'm fine. Really.
Jun. 1st, 2004 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reynardoHow to tell when the stress levels are rising:
Gillian forgets her ID tags/door passes not once, not twice, but three fricking times in one evening.
And why is Gillian stressed?
Firstly, those regular readers of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lederhosen and my journals would know that our house buying is on hold as we decided not to buy the one we were looking at. For various reasons, mostly to do with the renovations not having the required Council approval, we decided that there were too many strings and too many conditions attached to the sale. When looking at going into debt for a quarter of a million dollars and purchasing something that will cost us $700,000 one wants to be certain.
Stress number 1 - HOUSE HUNTING!!!
So therefore we're madly looking for a rental as our current dump is being demolished in a few weeks. It needs to be big enough to fit us and yet reasonable enoguh to live in and not too expensive. We have one possibility we've put our names down for, and we're checking another tomorrow. Then it's
Stress number 2 - MOVING DAY!!!!
We have to pack, and move, in 2 weeks.
Everything.
Luckily, about 60% of stuff is already packed. This time, again, I am going to have to decide which can stay in boxes until we get to the BOUGHT house and which we'll need in the RENTAL. Example - we've done without most of our books. Most of the kitchen gear. This time I think a lot more clothes are going to the charity bin, and I'm going to be ruthless about sheets with holes and torn towels. Besides, this time both of us have a salary and we're coping quite nicely, so we have the money for the removalists and the bond and everything, whereas last time we were geting very desperate.
Stress number 3 - SMALL PERSON BLUES
He's still fretting. We've had counselling sessions and the biggest thing to come out of it is that of course for the first 6 years of his life he pretty much had 100% of my time, not counting when he was at school or at his dad's place. Now, I'm working weird hours, I have a wonderful husband whom I love very much, these things are taking up my time and my son is feeling the loss. And of course he wants it all - who wouldn't.
Of course my husband wants time with me too. And I have other friends that I very much want to spend time with as well. And time to myself would be nice. But there's only so much of me to spread around, and Adam is unfortunately finding out that I can't give him 100% of me all the time. And so apparently this is part of the whole complaining about school and having school problems and that. That and he's finding he's not getting top-of-the-class without any work like he used to - his end-of-term results vary from lovely to desultory and he's depressed about that.
He asked about going to the other local high schools instead, but I pointed out to him a) he's not Greek Orthodox, b) not Catholic, and c) He's definitely not the sporting type that would benefit from going to a Sporting High School. He would find himself even more marginalised than he did at Primary School, where he was bright enough that in Year 1 he was bullied by Year 6 kids who were threatened by his intellect. So I'm going to be making him stay at Sydney Boys' High as long as I can.
But it also means that I have to take some time out of my precious sleep time to go see his Year Co-ordinator and Teachers, because he is having problems with the work. And possibly sit and go through work with him too.
And today I was dashing around getting important things like food for the household (and had my time carefully allocated so I just had time to get home and dump the food before I had to rush to work) when the mobile went off "Mum, I'm at school still, can you come and get me and pack an overnight bag so I can stay at Dad's place tonight becuase there's a teacher's strike on tomorrow?". Shit. Major drive out of way. Not good. Major traffic instead of expressway. Later. Get to school, boy in car, rush to expressway, ring work, wonderfullest boss in world understands and tells me to just let her know when I get in, get boy to ring father who cannot take a whole day off with no notice like that, sort out compromise where boy goes to father who then drives him home, drive boy to father's work, drive through peak-hour-highway-traffic to work, ring boss, almost burst into tears because she is very understanding..
I need a holiday.
Which brings me to the next point..
Stress number 4 - HOLIDAYS
The wonderfuljazzmasterson and harliquinn are coming to stay with us. Note that this is connected to the whole moving thing - we need to have the house in a state reasonable for these lovely people to stay in. In addition, we're all heading to Adelaide to sandypawozbun and usagi_ozbun's place, then driving to Melbourne to see the rest of the general bunch. It now turns out that thanks to various other stresses and having to take time off to be with small person and stuff, I don't quite have enough holiday days to take all the time I want to.
Luckily, work has a scheme to take time off in advance, but this is still a source of stress. That and getting ready for the friends and packing and once I get down there I'll be fine, but at the moment - AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
Stress 5 - SLEEP
Big one. Really big. Tonight I am putting my foot down HARD because, goddamit, I want UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP. I get home at 1:30 tonight. I won't have wound down from work for a couple of hours. I might have a hot bath then, and if I'm totally desperate because I had too much coffee and one of my lovely cow-orkers brought in some special stuff tonight and as a result I'm completely buzzing so I might chat on #melbourne for a while but oh God it takes forever to wind down without the use of alcohol or other relaxants so of COURSE I won't get to bed until about 4am so PLEASE don't wake me up until at least midday. And longer if you can.
*sigh*
I'm raving. I'm close to swearing. People who know me will know how serious that is. In three weeks everything will be fine. in two weeks everything had better be fine.
Until then, beware.
Gillian forgets her ID tags/door passes not once, not twice, but three fricking times in one evening.
And why is Gillian stressed?
Firstly, those regular readers of
lederhosen and my journals would know that our house buying is on hold as we decided not to buy the one we were looking at. For various reasons, mostly to do with the renovations not having the required Council approval, we decided that there were too many strings and too many conditions attached to the sale. When looking at going into debt for a quarter of a million dollars and purchasing something that will cost us $700,000 one wants to be certain.Stress number 1 - HOUSE HUNTING!!!
So therefore we're madly looking for a rental as our current dump is being demolished in a few weeks. It needs to be big enough to fit us and yet reasonable enoguh to live in and not too expensive. We have one possibility we've put our names down for, and we're checking another tomorrow. Then it's
Stress number 2 - MOVING DAY!!!!
We have to pack, and move, in 2 weeks.
Everything.
Luckily, about 60% of stuff is already packed. This time, again, I am going to have to decide which can stay in boxes until we get to the BOUGHT house and which we'll need in the RENTAL. Example - we've done without most of our books. Most of the kitchen gear. This time I think a lot more clothes are going to the charity bin, and I'm going to be ruthless about sheets with holes and torn towels. Besides, this time both of us have a salary and we're coping quite nicely, so we have the money for the removalists and the bond and everything, whereas last time we were geting very desperate.
Stress number 3 - SMALL PERSON BLUES
He's still fretting. We've had counselling sessions and the biggest thing to come out of it is that of course for the first 6 years of his life he pretty much had 100% of my time, not counting when he was at school or at his dad's place. Now, I'm working weird hours, I have a wonderful husband whom I love very much, these things are taking up my time and my son is feeling the loss. And of course he wants it all - who wouldn't.
Of course my husband wants time with me too. And I have other friends that I very much want to spend time with as well. And time to myself would be nice. But there's only so much of me to spread around, and Adam is unfortunately finding out that I can't give him 100% of me all the time. And so apparently this is part of the whole complaining about school and having school problems and that. That and he's finding he's not getting top-of-the-class without any work like he used to - his end-of-term results vary from lovely to desultory and he's depressed about that.
He asked about going to the other local high schools instead, but I pointed out to him a) he's not Greek Orthodox, b) not Catholic, and c) He's definitely not the sporting type that would benefit from going to a Sporting High School. He would find himself even more marginalised than he did at Primary School, where he was bright enough that in Year 1 he was bullied by Year 6 kids who were threatened by his intellect. So I'm going to be making him stay at Sydney Boys' High as long as I can.
But it also means that I have to take some time out of my precious sleep time to go see his Year Co-ordinator and Teachers, because he is having problems with the work. And possibly sit and go through work with him too.
And today I was dashing around getting important things like food for the household (and had my time carefully allocated so I just had time to get home and dump the food before I had to rush to work) when the mobile went off "Mum, I'm at school still, can you come and get me and pack an overnight bag so I can stay at Dad's place tonight becuase there's a teacher's strike on tomorrow?". Shit. Major drive out of way. Not good. Major traffic instead of expressway. Later. Get to school, boy in car, rush to expressway, ring work, wonderfullest boss in world understands and tells me to just let her know when I get in, get boy to ring father who cannot take a whole day off with no notice like that, sort out compromise where boy goes to father who then drives him home, drive boy to father's work, drive through peak-hour-highway-traffic to work, ring boss, almost burst into tears because she is very understanding..
I need a holiday.
Which brings me to the next point..
Stress number 4 - HOLIDAYS
The wonderful
jazzmasterson and harliquinn are coming to stay with us. Note that this is connected to the whole moving thing - we need to have the house in a state reasonable for these lovely people to stay in. In addition, we're all heading to Adelaide to sandypawozbun and usagi_ozbun's place, then driving to Melbourne to see the rest of the general bunch. It now turns out that thanks to various other stresses and having to take time off to be with small person and stuff, I don't quite have enough holiday days to take all the time I want to. Luckily, work has a scheme to take time off in advance, but this is still a source of stress. That and getting ready for the friends and packing and once I get down there I'll be fine, but at the moment - AAAGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!
Stress 5 - SLEEP
Big one. Really big. Tonight I am putting my foot down HARD because, goddamit, I want UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP. I get home at 1:30 tonight. I won't have wound down from work for a couple of hours. I might have a hot bath then, and if I'm totally desperate because I had too much coffee and one of my lovely cow-orkers brought in some special stuff tonight and as a result I'm completely buzzing so I might chat on #melbourne for a while but oh God it takes forever to wind down without the use of alcohol or other relaxants so of COURSE I won't get to bed until about 4am so PLEASE don't wake me up until at least midday. And longer if you can.
*sigh*
I'm raving. I'm close to swearing. People who know me will know how serious that is. In three weeks everything will be fine. in two weeks everything had better be fine.
Until then, beware.
