It must be serious....

....there's a second pot this morning.....

Yes, I had another of my sleepless nights. I've mentioned before that I suffer occasionally from insomnia, last night was one of those occasions.

I blame this lady.....

I love the moon, completely obsessed I am. I was born at full moon, it must have got into my system then. Although I love the moon at all times, especially those horned crescent ones. Very special. Moon watching was one of the first things I taught my daughters - now they're obsessed as well. I'm not alone Leanne likes the moon too.

However, sometimes when she's full....I can't sleep. Last night I couldn't sleep. So once again I am tired. I have lots to do today so I think the only answer is coffee, lots of fresh, organic, free trade, dark roast. I don't seem to have that manic energy that I had last time I had a sleepless night (last week). Just exhaustion today.

So today I shall quietly work away, drinking coffee and sparing a thought for Dave, who is having eye surgery today. I'm looking forward to seeing him in a monocle.

On my desk

Today I am still editing. So on my desk you will find....

The reference texts....

....the hard copies and my red pen - ('old red' as my students used to call it)

...and Sophie (the maid) - a blurry shot because she was about to jump away - she's camera shy.

There is also a magnifying glass, because I am in denial about needing glasses, a cup of tea (what would 'on my desk' be without at least a mention of a cup of tea?) and some dust. I need to dust the office. Not today though.

How's the serenity...*

Well, the girls are back at school and Tom's at work. It's all quiet and I'm all alone. Well, alone except for Sophie but she sleeps all day and doesn't make much noise - or conversation. It's peaceful. Lovely and quiet. Tum te tum te tum. Yep, loving the silence. Now what?

It always throws me when the girls go back to school after holidays. For the first day or so I can't quite adapt to an empty house. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind an empty house and I love having the time to 'get on with things', but it just takes a bit of getting used to after having the girls home for a couple of weeks (or even longer in summer).

Today I'm editing. I like editing, it suits my ridiculously fussy nature when it comes to spelling and grammar (especially other people's). However today I'm having trouble settling to it. I sit down, look at the document, correct a typo then jump up and go and clean the toilet. Then I come back, look at the document again, change a sentence around....and jump up and go and make a cup of tea. As you can see writing a blog post is the current distraction of choice. It's only a matter of time before I'm standing in front of the fridge looking for an edible distraction. You're getting the idea aren't you? It's just not flowing for me here today.

However as Thursday is the deadline for this work I'd better get to it.

Just as soon as I've dusted the piano.

*Classic line from the movie The Castle

Here I am!

Well, where did the weekend go? On Friday afternoon it seemed like we were heading for a weekend like any other, little did I know that the universe was conspiring against me. On Saturday morning Tom announced that he was going to have to work, he's currently doing some environmental consultancy work (as well as his normal job) and had a project with a looming deadline and needed the computer all day. I didn't realise he actually meant ALL DAY. He even ate lunch at the desk. At 11pm I gave up on getting a turn and toddled off to bed. So bang went Saturday's post.

When Tom finally came to bed he was feeling a bit guilty about abandoning us all for the day and since it was the end of the holidays he suggested we took the girls out for the day on Sunday. So we did. ALL DAY...again. We finally got home, cooked dinner, ate dinner, organised the children and read them stories. Then I did some general tidying, ironing and preparation for the week and thought 'blog post!' and came through to the office. I read two blogs, opened blogger to start a new post and the computer crashed (it's been doing it a bit lately). I stared at it in dismay for a minute, considered rebooting and trying again but decided to just accept my fate and went to bed.

So here I am today, writing a post about not writing posts. Riveting isn't it?

Anyway, moving on....although I was unable to post on Saturday I was productive in other ways, I still have some of my manic energy and so I did the 'seasonal clothes shift' with the girls wardrobes. I put away any winter stuff that will still fit next year, I bagged anything that was still in good condition but didn't/wouldn't fit ready to take to Vinnies and chucked the rest. Then I got out the summer stuff and checked it all in case they'd grown more than I expected. They had. Then I made a (long) list of what we still need. That took the best part of the day because it also involved a general cleaning out of the drawers and wardrobe, there were piles of clothes everywhere. It's all tidy and sorted now (you're enjoying all this aren't you?).

On Sunday we did some of this.....

And this......

'scary, scary' hee hee, and also this.......

I've got no idea who that is saying 'wheeee' at the start, it isn't me - I'm way to cool to say 'wheeee'.

Then just to show how perfect my life is, sometimes a princess reads me a bedtime story - even if her tiara has slipped slightly.

Finally, because Dave faithfully returned to Bridget's Flame several times over the weekend only to find nothing new to read, here is a gratuitous picture of Shane Watson apparently having 'more fun than he's ever had' which in my book merely illustrates that he needs to get out more.

Thanks to Fox Sports for the picture.

Preparing and What I did yesterday

The girls go back to school on Tuesday, commencing the first of the 'summer terms' - different uniform, sandals, sun hats every day. This morning I thought 'I hope those uniforms fit'. So we got them out and tried everything on. They were fine. Hannah needed new school sandals so we went and bought those today. Boring brown school sandals. $85. All the nice shoes we could have bought for $85, but no...they were the ones we needed. And did I mention.......$85!!?

We also went to the pet shop and saw the puppies. I'd love a puppy. Just saying.

Then we went to the supermarket which was a hoot (no, I'm kidding, it was supermarket shopping - same as always).

Now we're home. We had lunch and now I have work to do (yes, the kind you get paid for). I'd really like to put my feet up for half an hour but I'd better not.

Speaking of such things remember how tired I was yesterday? Well, I don't know what happened but despite being so tired I started a couple of jobs I've been intending to do for a while.......and couldn't stop. I was like the energiser bunny on speed...I was still going at 11pm!! Tom was worried that when I did eventually go to bed I wouldn't be able to sleep I was so strung out and manic.

I.......

- Changed the sheets/quilt covers etc

- Vacuumed and dusted the whole house

- Did 4 loads of washing, the whole washing line was full plus two small dryer loads

- Completely tidied, ordered and organised the top drawer of the filing cabinet (got 4 supermarket plastic bags of papers – I really need a shredder)

- Tidied and organised the bills folder, did a new fortnightly budget spreadsheet and another financial spreadsheet

- Folded most of the clean washing and put it away

- Took a cup of tea to bed at 11pm and read until midnight.

This is all as well as the usual daily bits and pieces, supervising children, making lunch, making dinner, bathing children etc. Once I went to bed I did actually fall asleep easily and slept well. I've got no idea what caused the wild energy burst, especially considering I was operating on less than 3 hours sleep, but whatever it was I'd like some more of it.

The calm before the storm

Yesterday was uneventful. A peaceful day spent indoors, playing games, doing puzzles, watching a movie....staying out of the cold. Hence the lack of material for yesterday's post.

I should have known....it was too quiet. Way too peaceful.

The girls went off to bed at the usual time (7.00ish) Tom read them stories while I tidied up and loaded the dishwasher. Then I read a few blogs, played around on the computer a bit and watched a bit of TV (not all at once). After that I went off to bed to read my book. All was quiet.

At 10pm Aislin woke up crying....then screaming....we rushed in and she was curled in a ball saying her tummy hurt. This went on for a while then Tom decided he'd carry her around* a bit to calm her down. I was straightening up her bed when I heard him calling me, I hurried through and she was being sick in a plastic bowl that Tom had grabbed just in time. Violently sick. Then she was in pain again, then she was sick. It was lovely.

I'm not good with people throwing up, I'm sure most people aren't 'good' with it but some people seem to cope....I'm the one sympathetically holding the vomiters hair off their face and gently rubbing their back while quietly retching myself. I have been known to throw up in sympathy. After some time she seemed a bit better, we decided that she would sleep with me because there was a chance this would go on all night. Tom is exhausted at the moment because he's had a couple of big projects that have kept him up working in the wee small hours. He had to go to work today, I didn't. So I sent him off to Aislin's bed to cuddle up with Dorothy the Dinosaur and I took Aislin in with me. She lay groaning and dozing for a while then fell asleep. I read my book and kept an eye on her. Eventually I decided to try and sleep too. I was just dozing beside her when she started again with the throwing up. Not in the bowl we'd provided of course. No. All over the bed. Great.

It was 12.43am. She was washed and generally cleaned up, fresh pyjamas were put on, the bed was stripped and re-made (Tom did that, the commotion woke him up). Fortunately we have a mattress protector that did its job. We got back into bed - this time with layers of towels and cloth nappies** in case she was sick again (why didn't I prepare better the first time, it's not like I've never done this before?). The lights went out, we settled down, she was asleep in seconds.

I wasn't. Every time she moved I grabbed the sick bowl just in case. I was on edge. At one point she was cuddled right up to me and all I could think was 'please no, not ON me'. It was hell. The last time I recall looking at the clock it was 4.30am. I must have gone to sleep sometime after that.

Aislin woke this morning at 7.10am, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fit as a fiddle and raring to go. She opened her eyes and began to chat cheerfully to me about something or other. I groaned and cried a little bit. I tried to entice her back to sleep to no avail. We got up. I'm on my second pot of coffee.

I'm still tired.

The End.

*he's done this since they were babies and is very skilled at it, he has this kind of rocking, swaying action that works wonders with sleepless babies, cranky toddlers and sick children. We call it the 'Daddy Dance'. He still resorts to it in times of trouble even though they are now 5 and 8 years old.

**the greatest invention EVER, I still use them for various things around the house - not as nappies though, thank God.

Don't look at me....

....I got nothin'