A birthday, a busy week, and surgery cancelled

You know how some weeks are so busy they just fly by? Well, this week was so busy, yet seemed to last for roughly 9658 days! Ha!

First up, O’s surgery Friday was cancelled at the last minute. We had spent a lot of time preparing and gearing up for the surgery - had to organise my parents to take E to and from school, rearrange work schedules, which meant I had to do an extra school pickup on a different day, etc etc. And then O’s mild cold, which he had had for about 10 days, started to develop a cough mid-week. On Thursday the hospital called to check in, and when they heard about the cold/cough they decided to reschedule. Which is probably the best decision, but STILL. Back on the waiting list. Ah well, best laid plans, right? At least I got a lot of work done yesterday in the end.

In other news, on Wednesday it was Al’s birthday! Mum and Dad generously offered to host a birthday dinner at their house, and we had our adult nephew, who had recently moved from New Zealand to Brisbane (our closest major city) visiting us for the night, so we had a nice evening. There was a delicious dinner of BBQ meatballs and roast veggies, a store bought chocolate mud cake (my contribution), which was yum and O came back for about 4 slices 😂, and presents- a fancy pillow, a massage voucher, and a nice bottle of red wine. Because neck and back comfort is what you value when you are in your 40s! Hehe

Cutting the cake

He loved that cake!

Other events this week include:

• Scouts in the pouring rain on Tuesday night. Al was at an event, so I had to bundle both kids into the car TWICE to bring E there and then pick her up an hour later. E thought it was GREAT FUN to jump in deep muddy puddles. Completely soaking her shoes, which happen to also be her school shoes. Nooo! So she wore white sneakers to school on Wednesday and I didn’t even care.

• Last week of school term before two weeks holidays means it was Easter Hat parade on Thursday. Lots of parents spent a lot of time making fancy hats, E wasn’t very keen and I’m not very crafty, so I bought some movable bunny ears and they were a big hit amongst E and her classmates. I watched the parade and E, who was not into this at all at the start of the day, of course because the life of party as soon as the parade started, grooving her way down the aisle. Gee she makes me laugh, a born performer. (I couldn’t get a good photo without lots of other people in the shot, so you’ll have to trust me it was very cute!)

• I finally saw the dermatologist and got a prescription for roaccutane. It’s quite an intense medication and tightly monitored, but I’m ready as I’ve tried everything else. Interestingly the dermatologist thinks my breakouts were first triggered by the steroid cream I’d use for my mild ecxema, and then it becomes self-perpetuating. Looking forward to eventually having clear skin and being able to wear makeup when I want to!

• I finished my re-read of slow productivity but I’m not ready to leave my productivity self-help genre behind, so I’ve started Essentialism - The Discipline of Doing Less by Greg McKeown. It’s an older book but I’ve never read it and heard good things, so decided it’s my next week. I’m already enjoying it.

• Speaking of doing less, I’ve been working on this with regard to work, because currently with my new teaching and student coordinating roles, I find myself over capacity! Emails are being missed, stress is a daily experience, deep work is being neglected. I hate feeling like this, so getting ideas of how to cut things so I can get back on top. I’m not willing to just work nights and weekends as a regular thing, so I’ll need a more creative solution.

• I’ll leave you with a cute kid photo - O has been loving the book The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson, a delightful book. So he wanted to make paper dolls. Now I’m not very crafty but this is something I could handle, so we did this Friday before kindy. He loved it, and the results were very cute.

Working on his designs

The finished product

Happy weekend everyone! Anyone else have a busy week? Did it fly by, or seem never ending?