Knots

from here

I’m feeling rather anxious at the moment. I never used to be an anxious person (I think I came down with it while pregnant with Hazel and still haven’t recovered), and I don’t like it; I like to think of myself as being quite calm and collected, so feeling uncalm and uncollected makes me cranky, and then I just feel cranky and anxious. Cranxious. What follows is a whinge about list of the things that are currently tying my innards in knots, because writing will help, I think, so feel free to skip this post, or to comment with something like, “I have a great suggestion! [Followed by a great suggestion]” or “Good golly, this blog is getting boring these days,” or “STOP DRINKING BEROCCA YOU CRAZY PERSON.”

First of all, the church news sheet is NOT GOING WELL. I thought that by ridding the world of some clip art I’d be rewarded both on earth and in heaven, but NO. I spent approximately 400 hours last week reformatting the sheet  to reduce the size from folded A4 open-out booklet thing to an A5 front-and-back (as requested). This is good for the environment (less paper and ink used each week) and also for me, because I finally created the file in Publisher and now won’t want to punch Microsoft Word and its maddeningly sensitive and bizarre layout…iness… quite so often (I just added a space, Microsoft Word! No need to add an extra page/move my text into an entirely different column/etc.!). So I worked on the news sheet when I really wanted to be doing other things (like working for my old company OR getting reading done for my course for which I’ll have an exam in a month OR watching the second season of The Mindy Project), and then I emailed it out to a few key church people and felt relieved that it was DONE. 

But then the person who used to do it – let’s just call her Betty – emailed everyone with an “I’m not against change but what the flip is this?!” rant against everything I’d done, and then I spent ANOTHER 400 hours updating it and stopping myself from writing ranty emails back to her (“Dearest Betty, THE CHURCH ADDRESS DOES NOT NEED TO BE ON THE NEWS SHEET BECAUSE IF A PERSON IS READING THE NEWS SHEET IT MEANS THEY’RE SITTING IN THE CHURCH. Lots of love, Annelise”). It was handed out for the first time on Sunday, and an announcement was made that feedback would be welcomed. I’m still waiting to hear what others think. *grinds teeth*

Secondly, my brother’s getting married next month on the Gold Coast, and I need to work out what to do with the kids while Alan and I are receptioning there. Moses is at an age where he’d be happy and able to stay with someone we don’t see very often while Alan and I go up there, but Hazel is not. It’ll have to be someone we don’t see often because our main babysitter (my mum) will also be at the wedding, and our back-up babysitters (the older couple of my half-siblings) will be looking after the younger of my half-siblings while Mum’s away at the wedding. 

So. Do we drive Moses to Alan’s parents’ place to stay with them for the weekend (4ish hours there, 4ish hours back), and then drive back to Sydney and fly up to the wedding and then drive back to Alan’s parents’ place (4ish hours there, 4ish hours back) to pick Moses up? And could I just postpone Hazel’s daily breastfeed for a couple of days and leave her too? (No. No I couldn’t. I just checked with myself, and the answer is no.) (Also, this is provided Alan’s parents are both available and cool with the idea, which they may not be.) Or do we start asking friends if someone can come stay with Moses here, and then Alan, Hazel and I fly up and back without him, thus saving both massive drives and the cost of Mo’s plane ticket up and back?

Or do we fly a friend up with all of us and stay somewhere on the Gold Coast? Or do we find somewhere to stay in Brisbane and ask Brisbane friends if they’re free to babysit, and then drive an hour to the wedding? Or do we find accommodation somewhere cheapish for the Friday night and then stay at the actual venue of the wedding on the Saturday night and then hire a babysitter through some kind of find-a-babysitter service, knowing that we’ll be 5 minutes away from being able to check in on how everything’s going and that the babysitter won’t then need us to arrange accommodation for them? Or do we fly all of us up to Ballina and stay for free at my aunty’s place, which would mean her friend could babysit, and then drive 1.5 hours to the wedding? This option wouldn’t be too bad except DAYLIGHT SAVINGS! Here is a maths problem for you: If Alan and A Crazy Lady leave Ballina at 2pm and drive for 1.5 hours to get to a wedding in QLD, which is an hour behind NSW, what are the chances of them arriving just as it’s ending?

I want to book flights so that at least that’s done and I can move on to the next thing, but I still don’t know whether I need tickets for 2 adults and 1 child, 2 adults and 2 children, or 3 adults and 2 children, and whether we’re flying to Ballina, the Gold Coast, or Brisbane, and whether we’ll all be leaving on the Friday or whether I’ll go up on Friday and Alan can come up on Saturday instead and PLEASE EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO SCREAM INTO MY PILLOW.

Thirdly, I’ve been drinking Berocca because a (non-doctor) friend repeatedly implied that I was not recovering quickly enough from being sick for the simple reason that I was not drinking a Berocca every day, and I was so sick of being sick and she wasn’t the first person who’d sung the praises of Berocca at me, so I thought, FINE, I‘LL TRY IT. So I did, and I’m obsessed with the stuff, it’s like not-as-fizzy Fanta, and maybe I’m even addicted to it now, I don’t know, but it makes my heart feel funny, and not like, “Oh my goodness, I think I might be in love,” but more like, “Oh my goodness, I think I might be having a heart attack.” It also makes me act like the guy with the gun in this scene from The Fifth Element:

 

Sans weaponry, of course.

Fourthly, I have work for my old company, which is very exciting. I’ve done bits and pieces of work for them over the years since leaving, but this is the first time in a long time I’ve worked on lexicons, which is what I used to do when I was there. The supervisor emailed me and asked if I could help out, and I said YES, and then he sent me the transcription guidelines, and I wrote back and asked why things were being done That Way instead of This Other Way, and then he wrote back saying [what I heard as]  “You are awesome” and “How have we managed for all of this time without your amazing intellect” and “I’m soooo glad you’re working on this project,” etc., etc. It was pretty much 4 years of affirmation in one email chain. And I get PAID for it! And I know what I’m doing! And if I make a mistake I won’t be scarring anyone for life! It’s the exact opposite of mothering. So I want to be working on that, but instead I have to use my kid-free time resolving news sheet dramas and wedding dramas and Berocca dramas, and I have an EXAM next month, and all of that gets me into a cranxious spiral of thought which starts with me thinking about how everyone else gets to work during the day and then relax in the evening but here I am working, and working on other stuff when I want to be working on work stuff, and it’s too late and I’m too tired, and so on and so forth. And then it ends with me watching Mindy and gnawing at my fingernails and not looking at the time before I go to bed because I know I’ll regret knowing.

KNOTS, I tell you.