This week...29th March 2012...7 days I will never get back

It has been 7 days since that discovery.

So for the past week,

I have been doing little more than washing, vacumning, cleaning, washing,
checking, washing, vacumning and vacumning some more.

I have been breathing, sleeping, dreaming carpet beetles.

They have consumed my time, my energy, my thoughts.

(Besides being passive-aggressive,

I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies

which tend to manifest at times like this)

The whole thing really serves me right.

As a stay at home mum, I have been slack in my domestic homework.

I have been slack in my yarn and fabric storage.

I have spend the past months sitting around feeling very humdrum
and haven't achieved much in the way of living.

So really I am grateful for these little shits.
They have put a bomb under me
and I am feeling fresh again.

OK so they have also driven me from the heights of euphoria when I felt like I had them under control

to the dark depths of depression and stress when I would find yet another one in yet another place.

In case you ever come up against these things,

you might like to be aware of the following.

You will find a single one in a face washer on a shelf

and so manically clean out the whole cupboard to find no other sign of them.

You will also clean out a whole cupboard

and be about to high five yourself

when there will be a little larvae grinning (Yes. I swear. Grinning.) at you from that last little garment

that you pull out.

The grin was wiped of its face- literally- once it was a smear on my fingernail, let me tell you.

I have found things that I have forgotten that I owned.

(In the case of the bag of G strings, that is not a bad  thing.

It has been quite some time since I have worn them,
it will be quite some time till I wear them again- think hell will freezing over-
and now at least I have the bravado to toss them.
Anyone else hoarding bags of underwear that they wore 20 years ago?)

I have discovered fabrics that I forgot that I had.

(and apparently nothing, not even a carpet beetle larva,

is willing to consume some of those artificial fabrics made back in the 60s or 70s.

To do so would be to risk death or at least severe constipation)

I have helped the companies
who make zip lock plastic bags, plastic storage tubs, cedar balls and Imperial Leather soap
(which helps stave off beetle infestations from your wool stash)
reach their monthly sales targets with ease.

Incalculable numbers of innocently by-standing black lint fluff have perished

in my goal to eradicate these beasties from my house.

Neighbours are no doubt choking on the cedar and lavendar scents emanating from the house at #5.

The worst is over but the fight will continue.
Vigilance will be required (and probably chemicals too)
but I am hopeful that the long term fall-out from this will be positive.

I feel more energetic and happier than I have in a long time.
I have been feeling oppressed and flat...
and now I don't.

So while you, my dear readers, might possibility be interested

in photos of me vacumning (in a G string or not)

or the clothes line full, full, full of washing

or little hairy beasties (or lint) on skirting boards,

I will assume that you would prefer to see my new squishy winter jumper

that I finished just before the proverbial hit the fan last week.

White Light- Veera Valimaki

I have caught the bug.

I am back.

I am enthusiastic,

motivated,

energetic,

positively champing at the bit to get my life organised,

to achieve,

to be adventurous.

After months of apathy and sluggishness,

***BAM***

I am inspired.

So what brought on this adrenalin surge?

A small thing really.

A really small thing.

A small, mobile, hairy thing.

A carpet beetle.

Or beetles.

Or more specifically, larvae.

(wanderinweeta.blogspot.com)

Might I say there is nothing like a vacumning knitter finding a teensy weensy hairy little beetle that eats yarn

to kick in that survival "fight or flight" reflex.

So I find myself dealing with the little critters,

checking the yarn stash.

cleaning, cleaning, cleaning,
washing, washing, washing,
vacumning, vacumning, vacumning,
more washing,

throwing out doses of cedar and lavendar (and I will admit a good spray of Mortein Fast Knockdown
when it is warranted) as I go,
extending to cleaning out-
the kids' toys, books, our clothes, the pantry...

Spring cleaning areas in the house untouched by civilisation since the Industrial Revolution...

jumping feet first into the "want to do" list

that I have ignored for a year or two...

planning what I am going to get done...

Who'd have thought that such a small, hairy critter
could delivery such a big kick up my butt?

I'm fired up.

And it feels good.

(weheartit.com)

(Nb It probably only feels this good because my yarn stash seems to be pretty much intact)

Forget the start of Autumn...

...it's the start of the birthday season for another year...

I got off lightly with the first.

The turning-seven year old wanted
1- a Mario theme (commercial junkie that he is)
so I decided either Boo or a goomba were going to be easy cakes
and
2- wanted two friends for a sleepover

(and only one ended up staying the night)

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet!

Happy birthday, my gorgeous Leo.

Next up, our first ever real girlie girl party with a legitimate list of little friends to invite,

not just family friends.

The turning-five year old is counting the days

and changing her mind every 5 minutes...

a pony party,...wait. A fairy party...

No, now I want a rainbow party...

Hold on...can I have a pony party?...

I'll keep you posted on that one..

I can pretty much guarantee you that it will be pink and twirly,

whatever the theme.

It will be interesting to see how the big brothers cope
with a bunch of pink, glittery girls (and associated girl germs)

running amok.

Changing Batteries 101

Ready?
Then let's begin.
First up...

1 THE BASIC BATTERY CHANGE

Snap or slide open the back of your remote control. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required: minimal.
Most challenging part is finding out where your kids have stashed the remote.

Now that you are feeling confident, let's move onto the next level.

2 THE AVERAGE BATTERY CHANGE

This will be very familiar to parents of young children who have toys.

Unscrew the back cover. Change the batteries. Replace the cover.

Skill level required:  Easy. Requires you to remember Lefty Loosie and Righty Tighty.
Then it is easy peasy.

It does, however,  require the willpower to know that the newly charged toy will be making repeated, constant, annoying noises for the immediate future.

Well done.

Feeling pretty good?

Let's move onto Advanced...
...and smite that confidence right out of you.

3 THE ADVANCED BATTERY CHANGE
(advanced being another word for impossible)

Yeah, well, apparently this would be an ipod.

The one that has a disclaimer that says changing the battery on your own will void warranty. The one where even the helpful bloke on the youtube tute pretty much says that unless you are a brain surgeon with experience in rocket science (and own a soldering iron) or a rocket scientist with experience in brain surgery (and own a soldering iron), steer clear.

Skill level required: Un-friggin-believable.

(I might say at this stage that my ipod seemed to have some weird fault and was well out of warranty and we were hoping that it was just the battery but it wasn't worth paying Apple...I mean, a service person good money to test that theory)

Hubby also had a disclaimer for me before he attempted it. Don't blame him if it all went to hell in a handbasket.

To cut a long story short, he got quite a long way before things started to go wrong.

He even managed to not lose the tiny, tiny spring that the video tute adamently recommended not losing.

(Well, he didn't lose it until he put it on his desk and then it bounced and hasn't been seen since)

Then bits that weren't meant to be bent were being bent and pieces that were meant to be separated were not being separated without brute force
and, well, that "hell in a handbasket" disclaimer suddenly came into its own.



Look closely at this above photograph.

The white square sitting just under the back casing is the battery.

Funnily enough, the battery is at the back of the ipod,
 and if you could just remove the back panel (as in level 1 or 2 shown above),
a University degree would not be needed to change it. 

It may well be that a PR person from Apple or a techno-head can come along and give me a good reason
(and by good I mean apart from revenue raising) that changing the battery in an ipod requires a complete dissection...by a professional...at a cost to the ipod owner.

But I doubt it.

Angry Birds don't fly much but time does.

(bestappsrated.com)

Apparently human beings at the moment spend 300 million minutes

 playing Angry Birds. every. single. day.

That equates to 208333 days per day.

Which (if my maths is right)  equals to 570 years of human life

spent on crabby red birds and funny looking green pigs every day.

Suddenly those occasional moments that I spend

watching paint dry and grass grow seem well spent.

(myunconventionalinsight.wordpress.com)

Treading water.

I feel out of my depth at the moment.



2012 is hurrying on past
while I feel like I am just standing to one side watching it go by
and am doing nothing beyond keeping my head above water.

Two months of this "new" year are well and truly gone
and yet I still feel like I am getting over the summer break
and getting the kids ready for the new school year.



Days are passing, filled with packing lunches, homework and washing...life.



I am madly knitting.
Obssessively knitting.
-and thinking a lot while I do it.



But I just feel apathetic about everything else.
My blog is neglected as I have nothing to say.
I started this blog post about my apathy...
but couldn't be bothered finishing it.
My "to do" lists are growing while I think about action
but then end up watching another day pass without any progress.

I just feel tired. So tired.
I am distracted by nothing.
I am procrastinating.
I am feeling old as each year passes so much more quickly than the last.



I am not depressed.
I am not overly commited.
I have no real stresses
beyond setting myself some lofty and perhaps unachievable personal goals.

But I am a mum who has insisted, quite loudly and readily until now,
 that when my youngest starts school mid-year,
I will celebrate and thrive in the sanity time
and be a better mum for the break that I get each day.



But now that the time is drawing ever closer,
I realise that, after nine years at home with babies, toddlers, my dependent offspring,
there will be an emptiness
and I am realising how much I am going to miss that time
that will never be revisited.



I am cherishing every rainbow love heart that comes my way
because I know that soon it will be less of the rainbows and more of the maths homework
and the readers.
That much of the freedom that my four year old enjoys now
will be curtailed by the regiment of school.

I am feeling a melancholia
that I want to shrug off.
I want to energise myself and slap myself across the cheek and buck up.
 I want to move forward
instead of standing knee-deep in water, getting pulled back a step
each time I take two steps forward.

I am going to make an effort.