But It's Only Tuesday!

Big weekend with over 300km on Thea within 24 hours and another 400 more before the weekend was done. For some crazy reason I woke up circa 3am on Saturday morning and waged war on the doona for the next three and a half hours before finally giving up and climbing out of bed with a million thoughts and plans in my head, most of which were the within the same few themes over and over again: car seat covers, packing, travelling and how we would get the domestic chores done while we weren't even in the house.

The Starchild took the smiley monster for his 7.30am swimming lessons while I had a lazy crazy shake brekky and organised the other two widdies for the weekends events before starting to investigate car seat covers. After reviewing websites across four states and making phone calls to places between here and Sydney, the best option, it seems, are custom made ones that would need to be ordered in. These were only slightly more expensive that the eBay equivalent but I think that for some items, an extra $20 is good value for being able to deal face to face should there be any complications.

So, until the car seat covers are here and fitted, Thea has been deemed to be a non-eating, non-drinking (except water) transportation service. Oh, how will the widdies cope!

When we set off we were late as usual, and arrived at the end of the first quarter of the Virgo Nurse's netball game. Bones was there already and we all got to watch her come home with a convincing win over the last three quarters - or rather, I got to watch as I am really the only one actually interested in netball, while The Starchild and Bones chased the widdies and mediated between them as required.

We all stayed at the Virgo Nurse's house that night and set the alarm for 6am with the plan being that we would leave by 6.30am. Theoretically possible, but I knew from the outset that it was a plan doomed to failure, with final confirmation at 6.28am when the Virgo Nurse staggered into the bathroom for her shower. We ended up leaving a little after 7am.

It was wonderful to have all of us driving out to Lithgow in the one car. We even had one spare seat but I still couldn't convince The Starchild to pick up a hitch hiker. We arrived about 20 minutes later than planned, so it was a pretty good run and a very positive visit to the nine live cat with clipped wings.

We had lunch at a nearby park and went back for the afternoon visit as well. I had already shed a surreptitious tear in the morning session because it is really not an easy process with the kids and the whole gaol environment and it reminds me of how much of an outsider I have always felt in my "family" by marriage, but we make our own choices, don't we?

There was a shop that I wanted to visit on the way back, but, of course, we were running late for a suit fitting so didn't stop. As it turned out, we hit traffic a little further on and didn't make the suit fitting either, so we could have stopped at the one thing that I had wanted to do over the whole weekend, but now I just sound bitter when at the time I was in backseat-to-your-lives mode and had graciously withdrawn my request anyway.

On the last leg of the journey after we dropped off the Virgo Nurse and Bones, all of the widdies wanted to sit in the second row of seats as they were having a rare moment when they all wanted to watch the same DVD. Hurrah for the Bee Movie. Rather than leave the third row vacant, I decided to spread out with the doona and pillow and spent some time in comfort and in quiet gratitude for all of the blessings in our lives.

We got home just before 9pm, put the sleeping smiley monster straight in bed, gave the other two a quick shower and tucked them into bed, then brought the rest of our travelling gear (which contains a high percentage of toys that are rarely touched throughout the journey) in from the car. I'm lucky I didn't blink as I would have completely missed the whole weekend.

Yesterday was another day of procrastination. I wish procrastination was a paying career cause that's something I really excel at.

I started today full of plans, but after feeding the widdies, getting the widdies lunches, ironing the widdies uniforms, taking the smiley monster to care and the other two to school, paying the deposit on the car seats, getting petrol, doing a grocery shop, putting away the groceries, feeding the lorikeets, feeding the budgies and doing a quick vacuum under their cage, feeding the dog and cats some left overs, feeding the chooks, cleaning the chooks water dishes, cleaning the pond filter, putting a load of clothes in the dryer, unpacking the dishwasher and washing up a few pots and pans that had been sitting sullenly with an accusatory look about them since Thursday, The Starchild came home and took me out on a date for lunch so now I'm a bit over doing anything else. And still the company paper work lurks unattended.

But I have blogged, so that's something. And lunch was very lovely. We played a few games of pool afterwards, which was also fun. I had bought a semi-acoustic guitar with pick up this morning from Aldi for $99 (reduced from $149) during the grocery shop and I'm totally stoked with it. It includes a case, stand, strap, lead and five picks and sounds much better than my $35 purple eBay jobbie (which I still love because it's purple). I bought the new guitar because Kman wanted a one with a pick up so he could be plugged in when we jam at church but I will probably use it as my main practice guitar as well so it will officially be a family purchase.

Well, that's my last four days. The widdies will be home from school soon, then I will pick up the smiley monster and be back for about 15 minutes before taking the impossible princess to dancing and somehow organising dinner in between. Looking at everything that happened and knowing I've only just skimmed the surface, I feel justifiably tired, but it's only Tuesday!