In this blog…I was painfully dragging myself towards the Christmas holidays, not least because my lower limbs had decided to malfunction!  Mia was excited about absolutely everything because A) it was nearly Christmas and B) excited puppy  is her default setting!  Throw in a few social engagements, a spray-tanning incident and a waterlogged garage door buzzer and there you have it!  Enjoy!💕

Monday:

I woke up and my legs were still asleep!  It was so weird!  I could barely feel my hand touching my legs from the knee down and when I jumped in the shower and shaved my legs, I couldn’t feel my razor!  So freaky!😳

School holidays are in full swing.  Work is in half swing.  I am seriously struggling with being an ex-teacher who no longer has school holidays!  I know, crack the violins out, right?!🙊 Thank goodness Mia’s Kindy will allow her to go to holiday play until the end of the calendar year, because then I am stuffed!

Mia wrote her first full letter to Santa today!  I feel I should frame it because it is so low-key, I can’t imagine it ever being so simplistic (or inexpensive!) again.  5 is an amazing age!

May Mia’s Santa letters always be so kind on the wallet! I know, fat chance!😑

Tuesday:

Argument with GH first thing because he was running late for work and wanted to drive his ute!😒Not the way I wanted to start the day and not my fault he doesn’t have his licence!😤In the end he saw sense but I am more than fed up at the minute!  I get that he is frustrated, but so am I!😖

I went to the chiropractor who said the numbness in my legs is because my back is all out of whack. He clicked and crunched me but I am feeling really drained. He said I need to reset so need to take it easy.  Lied and said I would try!🤥

While I was there I got a phone call from the real estate threatening that if we don’t sign the lease today, they will terminate it! I don’t even really want to stay in this house with everything going on, but realistically not going to move out just before Christmas, so another 6 months it is!🙄

Had an attempt at tidying up the pigsty before my lady came for tutoring – really wanted a tidy house before the Christmas chaos- but not sure that will ever happen!

I checked my bank account and I had been paid for my election work – hooray! So dashed out to buy some Xmas pressies sharpish, before another random bill arrives! Also posted Mia’s Santa letter and went to sign the lease and reported the possum in the roof as well!

Went to Bianca’s new house so the kids could play in the pool and we could also have a catch up. It is beautiful! Trying really hard not to be a downer on her happy occasion with my situation…

Somehow I managed to spill water in the entire centre console of my car and waterlogged the garage door buzzer!🙄First world problem, but an annoyance nonetheless!

Mia finally got to decorate the Christmas tree tonight. Well, she still hadn’t finished by the time I had got back from Pilates, so had to go to bed, but it should keep her occupied for a while!🤞

Decorating the Christmas tree in swimwear! “This is Australia!”

Wednesday:

Didn’t want to get out of bed!  Legs still numb and feeling drained.  Sent Mia to finish off the Christmas tree decorating while I attempted to pull myself together!

It was Mia’s very last day at Play and she got the wet play day she had missed the other week so was a happy bunny.🐰

I was trying to squeeze as many people into appointments at work before the end of the year as possible, but I honestly feel like I am trying to run in treacle at the moment!😓

We had a few tears and some sad goodbyes at the end of the day when I went to collect Mia, but hopefully she will still see her good friends again on play dates. She is a sensitive little soul to be so bothered though!❤

Thursday:

A well-needed morning at home.  I am still really sluggish in the mornings so am hoping my thyroid medication doesn’t need increasing again.

Sent Mia off with my phone for a little bit and she came back with this Hopster creation!😊

Another day, another artistic selfie from the munchkin!🐶💕

I kept her busy with craft for most of the morning and then bribed her with the iPad while I was tutoring.  She has quite a good little rapport going with the guy I tutor on Thursdays, but still manages to make him feel self-conscious by coming in sporadically and declaring “I can do that!”  I tried to reassure him that she is in fact full of it and can’t speak much French at all!  I would love her to, of course, and am always told that I should do more with her, but I also don’t want her to resent it and feel like it’s being shoved down her throat.  My least favourite subject at school was Maths, most probably because my Dad was a Maths teacher.  I just seem to have an inbuilt aversion to numbers, or maybe too much pressure placed on me in that area?!  Regardless, I will teach her French when she shows interest…although not in the middle of a tutoring session with a paying customer!😅

Friday:

A Mummy and Mia pamper/tidy up day before Christmas.  Mia loves coming to the salon with me and the lovely ladies at Smarty’s give her free rein of the place.  Unfortunately today while I was getting my hair done, she clambered into a “tent” with the salon stuffed bunny to read her magazine…what she didn’t know and we didn’t know until she came back out, was that it was the spray-tanning tent, so she was covered in fake tan!😳  Julz scrubbed her as best she could but some parts didn’t quite come out!🙈

There was no scrubbing this section of fake tan off!😬🙈

In the evening, it was time for the Volunteers Appreciation dinner at COC.  We were invited as part of the playgroup and it was a nice touch by them.  Mia got to have a full babysitting service and go back to Play to have pizza and games with some other kids, so it didn’t matter too much that Ian had gone out on a work Christmas do, as I had previously been hoping he could look after her.  Ah well, a night out was great for both of us, even if it wasn’t together!

Our dinner table and most importantly, I got to have baby snuggles!😍👶🏻

Saturday:

I did my usual Saturday morning ritual of going to Parkrun but took Mia with me as there was a new Toys R Us store opening at 9am, with prizes for the first hundred people in the queue.  I figured if we went straight from Parkrun we would have a pretty good chance, but I wasn’t counting on how long it was actually going to take her to get round the course while whinging OR the hardcore people who had been queuing (with kids I might add!😵) since 6am!  Queuing up with kids for 3 hours certainly deserves some sort of prize!  Those kids must be nothing like my ray of sunshine, as she was moaning about lining up for 45 minutes!  To their credit, Toys R Us had jazzed up the queuing process somewhat by bringing round bottles of water, lollipops, Santa and that giraffe mascot they have!  They were also giving out free raffle tickets, which was a great idea, but in reality completely unfair, as one worker started at the front of the queue and one at the end and they both ran out of tickets for a whole of chunk of people in the middle (which had to include us!🙄) so people who had been queuing a damn sight longer missed out!😒  We also missed out on the gift card for the first 100 people by about 20, so all in all #losing !😫

“Chicken Girl” strikes again!🐔

I found the toys pretty overpriced to be honest, but they did have a petting zoo so “chicken girl” was once again in her element, we met Santa again and I must say I am pretty surprised that we haven’t had a comment about Santa looking different everywhere we go just yet!  Miss Mia was very pleased that she was wearing her Minions t-shirt because there was a Minion character floating about too!  After slightly too much chicken time, I had to get Mia out of there so we could get ready for her swimming lesson.

I managed to squeeze in a bit of an afternoon snooze as I was going out later with Julz (my lovely nail tech)’s clients.  GH was working for a private tree company and wasn’t back as early as I thought, so I was pretty late arriving to the dinner at The Office and felt a bit self-conscious as I was walking in.  I needn’t have worried, everyone was really nice and welcoming.

I was actually the baby of the group, which is a bit of a bloody novelty these days!😀I’m pretty sure most of them could easily drink me under the table too!  We ended up with a hardcore little group who saw it through to the sickly end of cocktails in Moose Bar!  Julz’s husband gave us a lift home but the end of the night is very hazy to say the least!😬

Plot twist: I did not look like this the next morning!🤢

Sunday:

Woke up feeling shocking and spent the majority of the morning horizontal!😖 I had some lovely new Facebook friends courtesy of last night though!💕

And now just one week of work to get through before it closed for the holidays…😅