Oui Oui!

I am so glad it's the end of the week.  It's been a big one!

I'm not a huge fan of cooking reality tv shows (or reality tv shows in general actually) but I must admit I did get very excited a few months ago when a client asked us to organise a 4 day long cooking event to launch a new fresh food wing in a shopping centre in Queensland...which meant that I would have the opportunity to meet somebody that I have a huge celebrity crush on.

Manu Feildel. Oh how I love listening to your french accent!  I don't know what it is about an accent but they get me every time (sorry Timmy... I do love your Aussie twang too!)

I've been working really hard to pull everything together for this event.  It's been challenging to say the least but I eventually got there after many long hours.

I flew to Brisbane just for the first day to ensure that everything ran smoothly.  The night before I was due to fly I didn't sleep well at all.  I kept waking every hour or so with silly things running through my mind...had I forgotten this, did I remember to do that, all these scenarios ran through my head of what could go wrong.  I always do this the night before a big event.

Because my flight was so early in the morning Ella stayed the night at nanny and poppy's.  I never worry when mum is looking after Ella, but this time when I drove away, I felt strange.  I instantly missed her and had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I think I just felt differently because this time I was not just up the road, or a short car trip away from her, I was going to be hours away from her and not able to get home if I needed to for some reason.

I had an interesting flight to Brisbane, sandwiched in between two rather large businessmen, one of whom fell asleep and kept mumbling and twitching in his sleep.  I usually always fall asleep on planes, but suddenly I wondered, what if I mumble and twitch in my sleep?!  I stayed awake.

I arrived at the venue a little nervous about meeting Manu but he was very down to earth and friendly.  He's definitely not a shy man!

The event was a huge success which drew a massive crowd so the client was happy, aside from one slight slip up during the day which was completely not my fault, but we won't go into that here.

We drove back to the airport in the afternoon. I had managed to remain professional the whole day and not act like some crazy, desperate, giggling fan but when we got out of the car I had to ask to have a photo with him. Mum would have killed me if I didn't get a photo with him  after all!

It was such a long day and I was so looking forward to going home.  Manu flew business class of course, but poor little old me was booked on a Jetstar flight.  I was early for my flight so got some dinner, answered some emails and messages and then moseyed on down to the gate.  I shouldn't have been surprised but it turns out that my flight was delayed by nearly two hours!  No announcement as to why there was such a huge delay and not one staff member came to the gate to let everyone waiting know what was happening.  All I wanted to do was go home, pick up Ella and give her an enormous hug.  And then put my head down to rest.  I'd been awake since 5am and on my feet all day running around making sure everything was ok so all I wanted to do was sleep.

Eventually we boarded the plane and the ride home went by quickly which was good.  I had driven to the airport and for some reason whenever I got into that huge carpark I always have trouble finding my car.  I am pretty good with directions and I even took down exactly where I had parked, but yet again, I walked around the car park for about 15 minutes before I found it and happily drove home.

Ella was fast asleep when I got home.  I just wanted to poke her to wake her up so we could have a cuddle but instead I just watched her breathing gently and smelled her sweet hair.

Mum and dad were still awake - they usually go to bed at about 9pm so I was surprised they were still up when I got home at around 11pm.  Dad had a huge grin on his face and proudly told me how good Ella had been with him.  Dad doesn't get to see her all that often and the last few times that Ella has seen him she has absolutely gone wild.  Her little body shakes, she sobs uncontrollably.  She's just starting to become wary of people she's not that familiar with and dad also has a big bushy beard so I think that freaks her out a little bit too.  But he beamed that she had been "poppy's girl" this time and hadn't cried once.  I was so pleased because I could see his poor heart breaking every time she reacted so negatively around him.

So now that this big event is over I can relax just a little bit now.  Next week will be busy but after that we will be on the downward slope and back into less frantic times.  I can't wait for my days to be that little bit slower where I don't feel like that crazy Tasmanian Devil cartoon character buzzing around constantly.

I am looking forward to slowing down and just being able to breathe.  And the next time I am feeling a little overwhelmed with the chaos that is work, I'll just look at the picture of myself and Manu!  Sigh...

And this cheeky monkey never ceases to put a smile on my face either.  Lately she's been doing this weird thing with her tongue all the time...

The break I didn't know I needed

Lately I have been super busy with work.  I feel exhausted when I get home so I must admit that my house is not looking the best at the moment because I have been choosing to relax on the couch instead of doing housework.

A good friend of ours turned 40 last week and was celebrating with a weekend away.  Tim and I weren't sure if we would go because it was mainly family going and we didn't want to intrude.  But on thursday before the weekend they twisted our arm and so we ventured for our first little weekend away with Ella and I have to say that it was great.

The weather was amazing and they had hired a house right on a lake.  It was magical and it felt so good to feel the sun on my skin and to see Ella playing on the grass and in the water happily.  We had a little boat shed all to ourselves.  The water was literally about 2 meters from our bed!

Ella was on her best behaviour and had lots of fun...until they decided to let off fireworks in the middle of the night.  Let's just say she's not a fan!

Good food, good wine and good friends.  The tension lifted off my shoulders the moment we got there and I forgot all about work.

We need to do this more often!  But for now, I really should get this place cleaned up...

Packing the Esky

On the road to Lake Macquarie

Playing in the warm water

Sunset over the lake

See, I told you our bed was close to the water!!

Good morning!

Sunrise

Nice morning walk along the lake - bit chilly though at 7am!

Happy birthday Mick!

Wedding Cake

I was so happy when a good friend of mine asked if I would make her wedding cake some time ago.

It is the first time I have ever made a wedding cake so I was equal parts excited as I was nervous that it may not turn out and would ruin their day.  I put a lot of hours into that cake and was so happy with the way it turned out.

When I make cakes a lot of the time I don't get to see the people's faces when they see it for the first time or watch them cut it, so it was so nice to be at the wedding and see the bride's huge smile when she saw the cake and to watch the joy on their faces as they cut it.

Sleep, glorious sleep!

I really can't complain...Ella has been a pretty perfect baby.  She's never been sick (touch wood!), she's pretty easy going and happy most of the time but over the past couple of months her sleeping habits at night time have been getting worse.  She went from sleeping almost all through the night to waking every hour to two hours. Sometimes she was hungry or needed a nappy change, but most of the time there was nothing that seemed to be wrong but she just couldn't get herself back to sleep.  She would rub her little eyes madly so I know she was tired but she just couldn't get back to sleep on her own.  I was going insane, Tim was sleep deprived, we were fighting because we were both so frustrated, and Ella was getting grumpy.  Something had to give.

During those nights where she would wake so often, I would get out of bed, try to feed her, try to rock her back to sleep or sit next to her cot while she fought off sleep and eventually drifted off.  This could take anywhere up to nearly two hours each time!  I am sure I have worn a track in the carpet from my bed to her cot as my feet dragged along the ground in a half asleep state.

Tim has always suggested controlled crying, or controlled 'comforting' as they call it now, but this just seemed to be against everything that I believed in.  I argued that it was just something that I wasn't willing to consider.  I'm her mother, I am supposed to be there for her no matter what, to comfort her and protect her.  It's extremely difficult to parent in a consistent manner when you have a different opinion to your spouse on what you think is the right thing to do.  My approach didn't seem to be working though so reluctantly I agreed with Tim's suggestion.

Three nights ago we tried this technique for the first time.  We put Ella to bed (after lots of cuddles and attention) and walked out of the room.  She cried but we didn't go back into her room until about 2 minutes later, then Tim went into her room patted and shushed her until she settled and then he left the room again.  She cried again and this time we left her to cry for a little longer before going in and repeating the process.  Each time just leaving her on her own for a little longer to give her a chance to settle herself.

It broke my heart.  After twenty minutes I was a wreck.  My stomach was knotted and I felt sick as I listened to my poor baby sob for what seemed like an eternity.  It took every ounce of strength I had in me not to rush in to pick her up.  I sat on the couch and cried myself.  Tim had to be the one to go in at each interval because I just couldn't handle it.

After 40 minutes she was worn out and fell asleep on her own.  It was the longest 40 minutes of my life.  But that night, she didn't stir again until about 6.30am.  Amazing.  I couldn't wait to get her in the morning.  Her face lit up when she saw me.

Last night we followed the same process.  I was dreading the crying session again, but after putting her to bed, this time she only cried for about 10 minutes before drifting off to sleep.  Again, she didn't stir until around 3am as she had dirtied her nappy.  I went in and changed her and dreaded putting her back to bed, thinking that she was going to get upset again.  I tucked her in and walked out.  She made a few gurgles and then seemed to drift off to sleep within about 10 minutes.  Happy days!

Tonight I put her to bed after snuggling and reading books together.  I walked out of the room and she did not make a peep - not a single sound.  I returned to her room about 5 minutes later and she was already asleep and hasn't stirred since.

I am amazed at how quickly she seems to have adapted.  I am amazed at how great I feel when I wake up because I have finally had a proper nights sleep.  And I am amazed that Tim and I are no longer at each other's throats!

I guess there are some times that dad really does know best.  But I won't tell him that.

Last week

Sometime life is so easy, I coast from one week to the next with no major dramas and nothing too exciting happening.  And then there are other weeks where all these strange things happen and those drama's seems to pop up all at once - this was like last week.

Monday started off as usual.  Off to work and mum came over to look after Ella.  I got a phone call at about 11am from mum while I was at work.  She never calls work so I knew that something was wrong.  She had been emptying a bin at home and when she stood up from bending over, she must have just twisted the wrong way and something twinged in her back.  She wasn't really concerned about herself, more so the fact that she may not have been able to pick Ella up if she woke up from her sleep.

I rushed home and found mum hobbling around.  She was still doing things around the house even though I specifically told her to just sit down and take it easy until I got home in case she had done something serious.  Lucky I did come home because she was not able to walk upstairs to Ella's bedroom and I most certainly wouldn't have wanted her to lift up our little whopper with a bad back.  That's probably what strained it in the first place!!  Little Ella is not slight.  At just 6.5 months she's already nearly 11 kilo's!

I made an appointment for mum to see the physiotherapist and luckily they could get her in.  It turns out she just had a muscle spasm and everything was ok but she needed to rest and not lift anything heavy.  I was so happy that she was ok.

Now I just had to worry about what would happen on the other two days that I was supposed to work that week.  I wasn't sure what we would do.  I was so busy at work and knew I wouldn't be able to take the two days off even though my work is usually pretty flexible.  Luckily Tim was able to arrange to work from home on wednesday and thursday which was a God send.

I'm not sure whether or not he got much work done on those two days.  I came home on wednesday night and found photo's in Photobooth on our Mac that he was playing around with.  I think it was pretty safe to say that he had more fun with Ella than he got work done.  It was nice for him to be able to spend that time with her though.  It must be hard for him because he leaves for work early in the morning and usually doesn't get home from the city until just before Ella goes to bed so really he doesn't get to interact with her a lot during the week.

Oh dear...

They visited Yosemite National Park...

And the Eiffel Tower!

I was tickled pink that he was there to help her learn how to clap for the first time.  A milestone that daddy got to experience first before Mamma which is usually the way things go because I am with her more often.  Daddy was chuffed.  Ella is equally as chuffed with her new skill and now spends at least half an hour before she goes to sleep in her cot clapping her hands.

When I went to work on wednesday I was told that just after I left on monday to go home a red belly black snake was found slithering around on the driveway.  I would have walked straight past it!  I am not scared of many things, but snakes definitely give me the creeps.  My skin is crawling as I am typing.

I work in a semi rural area, in a nice home office.  My boss lives on acreage so I am surrounded by rolling green paddocks, horses neighing in the background, peach orchards next door and the smell of gum trees everywhere.  Sure beats working in the city!  With all the rain we've had though over the last couple of weeks, the snakes are out in full force.

On thursday when I came in to the office I was told that the kittens had found a baby brown snake and had killed it.  More skin crawling!  Yikes!  Working in the city maybe doesn't seem so bad now!  I am on super high alert now and jump at every little thing I see on the ground.  It's not good!  And where there's a baby brown snake...there's gotta be a mama nearby too...  Anyway, no more talk of snakes, thank you.

A good friend of mine who I met through Mother's Group was having her 40th Birthday and had asked me to make her birthday cake for her party.  I was excited about it and although it is hard to fit in making cakes along with working I do love it.  It was not without its challenges though.  The wet weather meant that the fondant was extremely hard to work with so it wasn't the best job that I had ever done.  I am my own worst critic though.

I started to get a tooth ache on tuesday and knew it wasn't going to be good.  I am bad when it comes to the dentist.  I don't go regularly, even though I know I should.  I'm not sure what it is about the dentist.  I'm not scared, it's just something that I just don't like doing.  Maybe it has something to do with the cost?!

I reluctantly booked in to the dentist but could' get in until a week away.  I'll be right I told myself.  But on wednesday it was getting worse, thursday it was worse again and on friday it was unbearable.  This was the day that I was supposed to decorate the cake.  What was I going to do?

I felt physically ill and I was sure it had to do with my tooth.  My jaw was aching and I could feel a lump.  Definitely not a good sign.  I called a different dentist to see if they could get me in any sooner and before I knew it I was booked in for midday.  I couldn't believe how anxious I was about it.  I really didn't want to go.  I don't even think I felt that anxious when I went to the hospital to have Ella!

I sat in the dentist chair and embarrassingly told the lady that I hadn't been in almost two years.  She didn't pass any judgement on me, well, at least not to my face, who knows what she said to her coworkers after I left!  They took an X-ray and I saw her face as she looked at it.  I knew the news wasn't going to be good.  I had a major infection at the root of one of my back teeth and required a root canal.  Root Canal.  That was not what I wanted to hear.  I felt ill again.

So for the next hour I lay there as the dentist drilled, and filed and poked and prodded away at my tooth.  Surprisingly the procedure really didn't hurt at all.  Thank God for modern medicine!  But I was glad when it was over.  Until she told me that I had to come back again next week where they would reopen the tooth and do it all over again.  And that they may need to do it several more times...

I felt a lot better afterwards.  The lump on my jaw had gone down considerably and while I did still have a dull ache, it was nothing like the pain I was experiencing before the root canal.

I finished the cake when I got home and surprisingly it turned out pretty well.  The birthday girl was happy and that was the main thing.

My week finished on a high note though.  My mum had taken me to see Phantom of the Opera when I was 17 years old.  I loved it.  I don't go to the opera/theatre much but I do enjoy it when I go.  As a thank you to mum for everything she does for us I bought us tickets to see the follow on from Phantom, Love Never Dies.

It was amazing.  The singing was great of course, but what blew me away was the staging.  I couldn't believe how beautiful and elaborate it all was.  I honestly felt like I was not sitting in a theatre and that I had been transported to Coney Island where the story was set.  Amazing costumes, amazing staging and amazing company.  It was so nice to spend the day with just mum and I.  I can't thank her enough for everything that she does for us.

So that was my week in a nutshell.  My skin is still crawling and my wallet is empty, but thank God for mum!

Anniversary Date

I had been looking forward to today for quite some time.  It's been a while since Tim and I have been out together just on our own and actually been able to talk to each other properly and just focus on one another.  I miss those times and we both agree that we need to set aside time like this just for each other on a more regular basis.

Tim gave me tickets to the Picasso Exhibition for Christmas so we decided we would make a day of it and head into the city to see the exhibition and go out for a leisurely lunch.  We headed off to the city in the morning - I was excited.  The last time I had visited a museum was the MoMA when we were in New York, where incidentally we also saw some of Picasso's work.

The exhibition didn't disappoint.  Not me at least.  Tim on the other hand is not really an art buff and spent most of the time watching other people or staring a painting with a puzzled look on his face as he tried to work out how this could possibly be art.

After the exhibition we took a stroll through the drizzling rain down to Wooloomooloo Wharf where we had lunch and then we moseyed on up to Max Brenner and indulged in some chocolate mousse and hot chocolate.

It was so nice to spend a lazy day just the two of us.  We felt like tourists walking through the city looking at all the sites and it made me want to travel again.

The call of the day had to be when Tim stood in front of one of Picasso's paintings from his cubism period and proudly exclaimed "I think I see dick and balls!".  No Timmy, there is no dick and balls.  How did I end up marrying such a cultured man?  Ha

Four year wedding anniversary

Today is our four year wedding anniversary.  When I look back on that day I can remember everything so vividly, like it was yesterday.

I remember waking up feeling as excited as I used to be as a child on Christmas morning and yelling from my bed "I'm getting married today!!!" and my neighbour told me to shut up!  I remember spending the day with my family and best friends getting our hair and makeup done and laughing the whole day until we had to leave for the venue.  I remember the butterflies in my stomach as we drove there, how my dad held my hand when I got out of the car and it felt just like I was a little girl again with his huge hands dwarfing mine.

I can still feel the huge smile I had on my face as I walked down the red carpet and saw Tim at the end waiting for me.  How we held hands from the moment I reached him and we didn't let go of each other until we had to sign the registry.  I remember feeling blessed to have our best friends in our bridal party by our sides as we had our photo's taken near the water.  I remember walking into the reception and how proud I felt as they announced me as Mrs Race for the first time.  And then there were the speeches that made me laugh and made me cry, followed by dancing and singing until we had to leave.

What an amazing day.  I loved everything about my wedding day.

Since then, Tim and I have experienced so much together and I realise how much we've grown.  We had an amazing honeymoon in Thailand on Phi Phi Island, then we flew to Koh Samui and just a few hours after we landed and we went to go exploring, Tim slipped on some mossy stairs and broke his hand and badly lacerated his hand and wrist.  We had to spend the first night there in a hospital and Tim had to have surgery when we got home to have a plate put in his hand as the breakages were so bad.

In April of the year we got married I had fairly major surgery to remove some very large fibroids from my uterus and at the time we weren't sure whether or not I would be able to conceive due to scarring, but thankfully this was not the case and everything was fine but at the time that was my worst nightmare.

After my operation I returned to work after extended leave where all I had done each day was think about what we were doing with our lives.  We both had good corporate jobs but we spent so much of our time working and not actually enjoying life and this was something that I desperately wanted to change.  Shortly after we booked aeroplane tickets to America, quit our jobs, moved out of our apartment and back into my mum and dads place and spent three months travelling the whole of the USA.  This was without a doubt one of the best times of my life.

I eventually got a new job when we returned home and so did Tim.  He had decided that after working in industrial/commercial real estate that he wanted to try his hand at residential sales.  He probably picked the very worst time to do this as the housing market had plummeted and although he gave it his very best shot, he simply wasn't making the company enough money and so they let him go.  The job market was not good at the time either so he remained unemployed for quite a few months which was not good.  Tim, like many men, feel that they are supposed to be the breadwinners and so being unemployed for so long was a bit of a blow to his manhood.

During the early months of his unemployment my mum found out she had breast cancer.  They had found a lump in each breast and she had to have a double mastectomy followed by months of chemotherapy.  If travelling in the US with Tim was the best time of my life, this was definitely the polar opposite.  I had never been so scared in my life when I found out that she had cancer.  But all was well, and still is now, and I learned that good can come from horrible experiences.  Our family became closer, my mum and dad's relationship changed, it was as if they had found new love again as they realised that the time they had together was so much more important now.  They held hands and hugged more and I have never been prouder of the two of them as they stood by each other and supported each other in a way that I had never seen them do before.  The sobering reality of mortality made all of us realise what was important in life again, and just to forget about everything else.

At the end of 2010 Tim and I bought our first house.  We spent months repainting, knocking down walls, replacing all the skirting in each room, recarpeting and making it our home.  We moved in in early November, not knowing at the time that there was somebody else in the house with us too.  I had fallen pregnant in October.

Beautiful baby Ella came into the world in August 2011 and life has never been the same since.  Sleepless nights, gummy smiles, dirty nappies, giggles in the bathtub and the like are what consume us now, furniture in our living room have been replaced with toys and general mess.  I don't think either of us realised how hard it would be to raise a baby, but we wouldn't change a thing.  We love Ella in ways that we didn't know we could.

And that brings us to today.  I received the biggest bunch of red roses that I have ever seen.  I think our table legs are about to buckle under the weight!  Tim's mum is going to look after Ella on saturday while Tim and I go to the Picasso Exhibition and out for lunch to celebrate and I can't wait to spend some time with just he and I.

We've had so many up's and down's over the last 4 years and through it all we have always supported each other.  I am proud of us and can't wait to see what the next 4 years brings.

I love you Timmy.  200.