Chaos

 Life is chaos right now. 

WORK

I've had many nights where I stayed up till 2 or 3am trying to get ahead with work. The psychology clinic is getting ready for NDIS registration which requires us to have all the necessary policies and procedures up and running. It is arduous work. Analysing the business needs, we realised our admin was not supporting our needs, and so I got to fire someone for the first time. I also hired the new admin, who has been amazing. With her help, we have identified other needs of the business and are changing clinical and accounting software. SO MUCH WORK! There's not a lot I can delegate either, so we are just making do the best we can. Matt and I went to visit with friends and watch a movie one night, and they made fun of me because I brought my laptop to work at the same time.  I'm exhausted. 

On the upside, we just finished creating our Mission and Vision statement:

Mission: Empowering people to live flourishing and happy lives through genuine care and teaching them skills to live the life they want. 

Vision: A community where people feel connected, hope for the future, and have the skills and resilience to embrace life's challenges and enjoy the journey.

STUDY

Last week, I had to turn in my honour's thesis research proposal, a 5000-word document covering my project's literature review and methods. I had only done 1/3 in advance, and then I spent all day and night Wednesday and Thursday. I went to bed at 2am Thursday at 4200 words feeling confident I could finish. I neglected to remember that was including references. When I removed that, I had 1500 words left. The hardest part, too, was that I want to do it properly, so although I can easily write 1500 words with the research I had, there were many missing elements requiring me to find new journal articles. I probably skimmed over 100 journal articles over 3 days. I did not finish. After finishing off one paragraph, it was time to pick up my kids. I sent an e-mail to my supervisors advising them I didn't finish, but here's what I could complete. No proofreading, no final edits, even my references had issues, but I sent it anyway. I felt so defeated. It was the first sign that I just couldn't meet all the demands in my life right now. Despite feeling low, one of my supervisors emailed me back the next day and said she thought it was very thorough and her edits were minimal. It's not a graded assignment, but I was more worried about letting them down. Her e-mail made me feel like I hadn't let anyone down, and I had actually done a really good job. Whew! I'm hoping work calms down so I can actually dig into that literature review properly. Three days of working on it had its benefits - I learned SO much, and I have many new thoughts on how to make it better. Additionally, this means I have less to do later. The irony of this is that my research is on self-care and well-being in postpartum mothers. I CLEARLY am not practising much self-care that would help me. By the way, if there are any Australian postpartum mum's out there, my survey is active, so please participate https://uniofsunshinecoast.syd1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0rpXNjEh0ZIrZOK!

FAMILY

After reading the above, you might be wondering how I'm managing this with two kids. I'm not. I quickly lose patience with them and have lost balance between home, work and study. To avoid losing my temper, I have been finding help where I can on the days they aren't in childcare to meet my other life demands. Luckily Sakura is used to playing at random people's house. Over the last month, she and Azalea have been dropped off at three new people's houses. People I didn't even know but had reached out to me from my cry for help on Facebook. I don't know what I would do without help from the community. My current workload is temporary, so it's just trying to get through this timeframe. I'm only surviving because of the many people that have helped me out. Thank you! You know who you are!

HOUSE BUILD

So the house has walls and whatnot, but things have slowed down. The industry is really behind with all the demand. We had an issue where we noticed the sliding doors were installed to open from the wrong sides. At the last minute, we decided to add interior insulation to all the walls (this is not typical for QLD). I am also still battling to get my two-car driveway. In Australia, it is common, mostly due to council regulations, to have a tapered driveway. I think this is stupid because most people park two cars in front of their driveway, so they end up driving on the lawn. I was told I had to apply to council, but when I started to see what I needed to do, I discovered no legislation saying it had to be tapered. Multiple e-mails back and forth from the builder have not yet provided any conclusion. I'm going to get it sorted eventually. The builder just wants to make sure they follow the laws and regulations, but I don't see why it takes them so long to come to the same conclusion I have. Matt is scheduled to do the painting this month, so hopefully, all will go well!

COMPUTER ISSUES

Because nothing in my life can be simple, I had another issue to sort last month. My computer has had issues stalling. I'll go to type and may have to wait several seconds for the computer to catch up. I built the PC myself with such specs to prevent this from happening. I've had three IT persons look at it with no conclusion. One suggested it might be the SSD. The last IT I said that, and he found that there are a small group of people where they experienced micro freezes with that particular SSD. I bought a new one, and it's supposedly easy to install. After over an hour of trying to screw a tiny bolt to hold the SSD in, I gave up. I determined I needed a different screw and found online that it might be in my motherboard box. Naturally, after moving the car and getting into the attic for the box - it's in the MOST inconvenient spot. I had to move three boxes to get to it. After opening it up, I found a bunch of screws, but NONE of them fit. I told the IT as I wasn't sure if the screws for this were standard or not. I purchased a tiny screw for $9 online, but it would come till the end of the week. The IT let me know he found one at work. After a few days of trying to coordinate with Matt to pick it up, I finally got it. After installing it, I discovered the screw head was too narrow and wouldn't hold the SSD in place. AHHHH! Luckily my eBay purchased screw arrived the next day and fit perfectly. Today I went to reformat the drive so I can then get the data transferred, and naturally, something is wrong, and I can't access the drive. I gave up and messaged IT. I just want him to remotely set it up. Seriously, I'm cursed. 

POSITIVE STUFF

I'm still playing basketball Tuesday nights which is no longer making me sore or stiff. One night it wasn't the mood-boosting activity I had hoped for, though. I had to take my girls as it was an early game. The team we played was rough, and the ref didn't call some of the fouls. We also just weren't playing with much team spirit, from my perspective. I had had such a rough day that the general low mood of everyone was really getting to me. When I got everyone buckled in and I sat in the car, I just bawled—so much emotion from the day I just had to let it out. Poor Sakura kept telling me to stop crying. We listened to Enya on the way home, and I hoped the next game would be better. It was, thankfully. 

I had a couple of fun nights out doing a murder mystery show and just getting together with friends and watching a movie. 

We had a fun dinner night making empanadas and visiting friends. We had our own assembly line going to make them all. I miss the empanada pre-cut circles I could buy in Argentina. So much faster. Still, we had chicken, meat, and cinnamon apple empanadas. It was a great opportunity to cook and chat at the same time. 

My friend Jennis and I have been meeting to get our life in order, so to speak. Meetings have covered organising our to-do list and priorities, budgeting, and meal planning. For example, we met last week to do a MASSIVE 11 hours of prepping 14 freezer meals each. It was so much work, but we finished! Yesterday I tried my first meal, Italian pot roast, and it was really yummy. We had the missionaries over for dinner, and I loved that all I had to do was dump it in the crockpot earlier in the day, and it was done when I got home 5 minutes before the missionaries arrived. 

Sakura has had some good times, including a play date with Cristiano and a visit to White Ridge Farm with her joy school friends. 

Azalea is practically crawling. She now can easily scoot across the room and is so good at getting up on her knees I think crawling is soon to follow. Unfortunately,
this means I have to keep the floor cleaner and make sure Sakura doesn't leave non-baby friendly items around. For example, one day, Azalea found a leftover popped balloon piece to suck on. Teething is not helping me catch up on sleep, but she still is happy most of the time. 

An awesome quote I heard recently from Dr Justin Coulson is, "The PRODUCT of parenting is the parent, NOT the child." I think that is so true. I am growing more from learning to be a parent than all of my efforts to teach my daughters to be good people.