Why???????????

I was reading the lastest issue of Creating Keepsakes scrapbooking magazine last night (yay for happy mail waiting in the PO Box on a Friday afternoon lol) and there was a section of Layouts about being a mother.
When I started reading them I had mixed emotions - I went from sad to depressed to angry to jealous all in the space of 30 minutes or so. I was sad because most of the LO's featured were of stay-at-home mums.
At first this sadness was because of the fact that I am one of those mum who chose not to stay at home but returned to work on a part-time basis (average of 3 days per week to start off with for 18mnths) until eventually I started back full time last year. Reading these Lo's made me sad at first because it got me to thinking - what have I missed out on because I chose to go back to work instead of being at home?
Then I got all depressed thinking that in same way my choice has had a negative impact on my boys lives. What will happen in 10 years time if they turn around and say to me 'like you care, all you ever did when we were little was work'.
After the depression came anger - anger at myself, anger at the world, anger at society and the stereotypes that are still placed on gender roles - yes we have come a long way but I still don't think we have fully broken down the walls between all of the roles and lastly anger at just the situation. I chose to go back to work for a number of different reasons.
To be honest with you, I never had any intention of going back to work so soon after Mitchell was born but at the time I was in a very difficult situation. After being on contract at the one school for 3 years I was finally offered permanency at a school about 90kms from Dalby plus another 30km from where Tony worked and we lived (120kms in total). While it was great to be finally permanent, the school was located in an area that at the time was crippled by drought (and still is to a much lesser extent) which meant that there was very little possibility of Tony getting any work out there - not much call for Farm Managers during a drought. Anyway I took the job - I would have been an idiot to refuse to accept permanency as it would have been a blemish against me for a looooooooooooong time with Education Qld - and made the decision to live away from home during the week and return at weekends.
As fate would have it, I fell pregnant about 3 months into the new school year. When transfer time rolled around, I applied for a compassionate transfer back to Dalby and seriously thought given my circumstances that it would happen. Sadly it didn't. So I took extended leave knowing that one day I would have to face that horrible decision all over again only this time what would I do with Mitchell given there was no formal daycare facilities in the area and we were both reluctant to leave him with 'just anyone'.
When Mitch was 5 months old, I received a phone call from one of the Deputy Principals at Dalby SHS wanting to know if I would be interested in job-sharing with someone coming back from maternity leave. What a dilemma - here I am a new mum with a 5 month old and not really wanting to return to work but also knew that this would probably be my best chance of getting back into Dalby. I stressed about this decision for weeks - I didn't want to go back so soon but I knew I didn't want to return to the other school and be separated from Tony (and possibly Mitchell depending on what arrangements we made) each week. I was given a 100% verbal guarantee that if I took the job-sharing spot, I would be transferred that year.In the end, hearing that got me and I took the position working 2 days one week and 3 days the next. We found a place for Mitchell in an excellent daycare centre and he loved it right from the start.
Unfortunately government departments don't always live up to their promises and I was not transferred as promised - more political game playing that went over my head.
So once again I was stuck - working on contract at one school while still being attached to the 'permanent school'. By this time I had made up my mind that I would rather resign than return to the school where I was considered 'permanent' - I didn't want to drive 240kms just to get to and from work each day. Fair enough people might do that in the city each day but trust me, country driving is a completely different story, especially when you add kangaroos, emus and wild pigs into the mix. Luckily my contract was extended for the following year but fate intervened again and I was pregnant for the second time. I applied for a transfer once again and was assured that my circumstances would all but give me the much-wanted transfer.
It didn't so again I was faced with some tough decisions. I accepted another contract at Dalby SHS, just hoping to keep my foot in the door so that one day they might just give up and transfer me. In the end it took until 2007 for my transfer to officially come through.
So why bother working if it was all that difficult some of you might ask? Well to be honest I suffered from Post-Natal Depression (as well as ongoing issues since about the age of 15) and I didn't cope very well at all. To this day I struggle with my 'issues' but for me work has been the one thing that has kept me centred and grounded while everything else around me was crumbling. When I was at home I was moody and angry and there were days I was scared that I could have hurt the boys. I know deep down that I wouldn't have but it was always a subconscious fear that I would. Going back to work made me a better mum - I was happier, the boys were happier. The time we spent together was QUALITY - we did things together, I didn't shut myself away from them because I couldn't cope with them. We laughed, we played, we read stories, we sat in the sun, we played in the sandpit - WE DID STUFF. Before I went back to work, we did very little of that becuase I couldn't - there were days that Tony had to stay home from work to make sure the boys were fed and changed becuase I couldn't make myself get out of bed - what sort of mother did that make me? What sort of mother could do that to their child or children? I hated myself but at the time I couldn't and didn't admit to my problems, I kept them all bottled up most of the time and pretended that everything was ok becuase I didn't want to be seen as a failure or more importantly, a bad mother.
This is where the jealousy set in - why can't I be one of those mums who is happy to stay at home. Why couldn't I cope? Why couldn't I be content? Why couldn't that be enough for me? Why can't I ever feel happy about the decisions I have made instead of questioning them at every other turn. Why can't I accept that this is the way I am and the way I always will be and that if it works for my, what is the problem with it? Why can't I stop questioning???

Why is it so hard to find the answer?

Update on the attack of the Easter Bunny and show 'n' tell

Well it is just over a month (at least I think it is a month lol) since the infamous attack of the Easter Bunny AKA Falling off a ladder on Easter Sunday - lol attack of the Easter Bunny sounds sooooooooooo much better.

So what does an attack from the Easter Bunny look like post-infection/enforced bedrest/2 weeks of daily visits to drs surgery for dressings and wound updates??? Wonder no more, check this out:

(LOL excuse the picture, I took it myself - never realised how hard it is to get a decent picture of one's own leg - lol especially when they are tree trunks like mine hehehehe)

I am finally able to go without any dressings at all ( BIG relief as I was starting to react to the different dressings and treatments the Drs/nurses were trying) - all I have to do now is keep a really close eye on the wounds and monitor for signs of regression back to infections and possible ulcerations. Hopefully that won't happen.

In all the time I had off, you would think that I would have got a truckload of scrapping done but I am ashamed to say that I did nothing, nudda, zilch. Being stuck in bed really didn't help and for some reason all I wanted to do is sleep and read and sleep some more. I think I got through 10 or 11 novels for the 5 days I was stuck in bed. YAY for me - I love to read!!

I did manage to get around to some scrapping on the weekend - a work in progress that I ended up pulling apart and starting over again. Not happy with it but it is another one for the albums.

Well that is all for now. Off to do some moping - feel really down in the dumps at the moment but can't seem to actually put a finger on what I feel so down/blah about. Maybe I just need to get over myself.

Til next time.

Me xoxoxox

Bugger that mean ol' easter bunny and a death... warning: long, rambling post coming up

As you may have read in the post I made about Easter, I had a bit of an accident on Easter Sunday. Turns out, it wasn't such a little accident. After spending most of the weekend in pain, I took myself back to the doctors on Monday (3rd time in 5 days) and begged to see someone to have a look at my leg. I was promptly taken into the nurses room where all the nurses on duty too great joy in examining, poking and prodding around the wounds, all the while exclaiming how badly infected it was - this is despite the antibiotic tablets and cream I was prescribed on the Tuesday after it happened. Thankfully they called one of my 'usual' doctors (whom I didn't see the first two times worst luck :( ) who ordered me to have complete bed rest with the leg elevated from Monday through to Wednesday with a daily trip in for re-dressing and examining.

Me being me and not wanting to put work out or let anyone down asked if that was really necessary - you know can't you just give me more antibiotics etc and I will go to school and rest it as much as I can type thing. Well wasn't I in for a rude shock when I was told it was home to bed or straight into hospital.

So three days later, I am over bed rest and now facing at least 2 more days of it as the infection isn't any better - it is no worse but no better either. The good news was that I did actually listen to the dr and took her words seriously and I have hardly left the bed since Monday - well hardly if you don't count still driving the boys to town for school/daycare and then going to drs for new dressings etc. But that is life when you are away from family who can lend a hand and when you have 6000 acres that needed spraying yesterday.

The week also got off to a bad start when our be-loved dog, Tess, died. We have only had her for just under two years but we all loved her very much - yeah maybe not me as much as Tony and the boys, I am more of a cat person but I am still very saddened by her passing. Like most places out here on the Darling Downs, we are facing an influx of rats and mice. Given how much grain we have stored and how many $$$ it is worth (pity it goes to the boss and not me :( lol), Tony dutifully laid baits around the sheds, silos and in the garage of our house to try and prevent them from doing too much damage. Tess being as inquisitive as ever got stuck into some of the bait and proceeded to have a fine time sniffing out all the dead rodents - needless to say she got sick from the poison. Tony took her to the vets and was given the (sort of) good news that of all the rat poison to consume, what she had was the least lethal to dogs. Sadly she must have had a lot more than we or the vets thought and she slowly went downhill. Tony found her when he came home for lunch yesterday. Poor thing, he loves his dogs more than anything - they are his best mates and loyal companions who willingly follow him. He has not spoken about it but I know just how upset he is - the quieter he goes, the more he is hurting.

OUR BELOVED TESS

(Picture taken early 2008 before we moved to this farm)

The good news of the week - finally something good to share - was that I did get around to entering some Layouts in our local show and walked away with 1 first and 3 seconds. Lol just had a flashback to childhood and playing Monopoly - 'YOU HAVE WON 2ND PRIZE IN A BEAUTY CONTEST, COLLECT $10 hehehehehehehe.

I was very happy with that considering I wasn't going to put anything in. Sadly because of my leg, I didn't get to go and see them up on display to take pictures so I will show you the LO's again instead.

FIRST PRIZE - CATEGORY HERITAGE LO

SECOND PRIZE - CATEGORY: TITLE PAGE

(hate this cateogry, need to contact the local show society and get them to change it - does anyone else think it is a silly category???)

SECOND PRIZE - CATEGORY: DOUBLE SCRAPBOOK LO

(very surprised at this because I hate the page - too simple and too plain and just yuck)

SECOND PRIZE - OTHER HARDCRAFT ITEM NOT MENTIONED.

This is the top bit off one of those $2 calendars that I altered - it sits on the wall right beside my computer screen.

Ok well seeing as I should be resting and keeping the leg elevated, I should leave this here. Hope you are all doing well. A special call out to a very very special beastie, Beck. Take care hun, look after yourself and give yourself a big hug from me. love ya hun.

Cheers,

Sarah xoxoxo

More scrappin' done

I cannot believe how much scrapbooking I have managed to get done over these holidays. I have never done so many LO's in such a short space of time. OK for those of you who scrap super fast and produce fantastic stuff, you probably won't understand what this feels like for me at the moment. I swear I am the world's slowest scrapbooker - no matter how simple my pages are, they still take me forever to do, so that is why I am so amazed at my efforts during these holidays. Here are two more from yesterday afternoon/last night:

Not sure if the scrapping roll will continue once school starts again tomorrow but at least I have had my fix for now.

Enjoy what is left of your weekends.

Cheers

Me xoxox

Some more show 'n' tell

Howdy everyone. Hope this lovely Saturday afternoon is treating you all kindly. Don't know about where you all live but here in my little neck of the woods, it is a glorious day. I have flocks of galahs, cockatoos, parrots, magpies and heaps of other varieties right outside my scraproom/office window and the sounds they all make are amazing. I have lived on farms all my life (barring my time spent in Brisbane at Uni but I still called the farm home) but I have never seen so many birds all at once. There must be something in these trees that attract them or maybe it is the fact that I love to keep my yard watered - gotta have a little bit of green when the rest of the place starts to dry out with no rain.

Anyway, I haven't come here to talk about birds or the weather, I have come with some more show 'n' tell. I created this LO last night while I was chatting away online and I must say that for once I actually like {maybe even love} something I did - shock horror lol. This is my baby - cannot believe that in just over a month, he will be 4 years old. I don't want him to grow up, I want him to stay the way he is but I know that is not possible. It is times like these where I seriously consider having another child. Part of me would love to hold a little girl in my arms more than anything but another part of me knows that given all the struggles I had with the other two and the battle I had within myself (and still have to this day), it would not be worth risking my mental well-being. I wish this tug-of-war would end and I would finally just make peace with my decision. Tell me - is it like this for all women or is there something wrong with me for not wanting more babies???

Enough of the melancholy - here is the LO:

And here is a little collage I made of the finer details: Hope the rest of the weekend treats you nicely.

Til next time,

Me xoxo

Easter Roundup

Well the little white bunny has been and gone for another year which means that we were graced with a visit from H-er and family. A great time was had by all - lots of bike riding, playing, running around and yelling by the kids and heaps of scrapping by H-er and I. I amazed myself at my ability to do more than one LO for the long weekend and H-er scrapped up a storm as well.

We did our traditional (well third year in a row anyway lol) easter egg hunt which was enjoyed by all the kids. Truth be told, I think H-er and I enjoy it more than the kids for the photo opportunities hehehehe. In all the excitement to get the perfect shot of the easter eggs, I had a little accident on the ladder of the cubby house - both legs are quite bruised and the cuts are a little bit infected but it doesn't matter - all in a day's work for an obsessed scrapbooker. Note to self - DO NOT MESS WITH THE EASTER BUNNY!!

The best part about the weekend was having the chance to sit and scrap with H-er. We tucked ourselves away in my scraproom after some quick rearranging of furniture and scrapped to our heart's content. This is what I managed to come up with:

Layout One - Gymkhana

A photo of my mum (RH side on 4th horse) and her brothers and sisters. Picture was taken at a Gymkhana during the Mungindi Show crica 1954. Looks like she won a prize or something given the sash that she is wearing.

Layout Two - Mud Brothers.

A double page LO of Mitch and Lachie using some pictures that I took out the front of the house a few weeks ago. I had come home from work sick and bought them with me because I was afraid that I would not be well enough to pick them up later in the day. I put a movie on for them and promptly fell asleep. I woke up a few hours later to squeals and giggles and this is what I found - I think I blogged about this down futher.

Layout Three - Faces of Lachie.

The pictures say it all, there is nothing else for me to say about this one.

Layout Four - M

A LO using Mitchell's daycare photo from 2007. Was very disappointed in the way these photos were processed - all the children came out very yellow looking. Needless to say, Daycare never used these photographers again.

Layout Five- Charlie Cat

A LO of my best buddie cat, Charlie. He is almost 10 years old - we got him about 5 weeks after Tony and I were married and he has been by my side constantly ever since then. I will be a total mess if something was to happen to him. Can't believe he will be 10 next month.

Layout Six - Mud Angel

I have been dying to use these Heidi Swapp wings ever since her workshop last December. As soon as I took this photo, I knew that the wings would be perfect.

Layout Seven - Man Bucket

This is one of my all time favourite photos of Lachlan. It has been sitting in my box of pics for almost 2 years and it wasn't until this weekend when I finally worked out what I wanted to do with it. Lachie has a thing about handbags, so much so that we call them manbags in our house and for a long time he thought that manbags was their proper name. Cannot work out why it took me so long to work out the title for this. :o

I need H-er to come back again because I haven't scrapped since she left. Maybe she stole my mojo and tucked it away in the camper.

Hope you all had a great easter. Enjoy what is left of the holidays - back to school for me on Monday, kids on Tuesday.

Me xoxoxoxo

What a Relief

After almost 2 1/2 days of solid work - with only time off for meals, hanging out washing, loading washing machine, folding and putting clothes away - I have finally managed to catch up on the huge pile of marking that has been tormenting me for the last little while.
I don't know what happened but I got so bogged down that I could not see a way out of anything and was getting that stressed out about it all that I couldn't sit down and do it without a feeling of panic start to rise. I tried things like ignoring it, trying to set up rewards like mark for one day of the weekend and have the other day off but none of it worked. I even tried to scrap as an incentive without any success - well success in the fact that I scrapped but no success in terms of marking.
So Friday afternoon, I made a pact with myself. The pact was to get in and do the marking no matter what so I could enjoy the Easter break or face all of this over that time as well and it was a no-brainer - the marking won hands down.
So here I am, late Sunday night just minutes before 24 starts and I feel like a free woman again. No more piles of marking waiting for me and the best part about this week is that any assessment at school are all oral presentations which can be marked on the spot so no more marking to bring home until next term. So yay yay yay yay cheer cheer cheer cheer for that.
While I am here, I want to send two girls big big big HUGE hugs (B and H-er) because without your encouragement and pushing I would not have been able to tackle those piles this weekend so thanks girls, I owe you big time.
Ok off to watch 24 and do the ironing (yuck).

Til next time

me xoxoxox