Could be better, could be worse.

 Welcome to the "Pit of Despair"!

A friend of mine asks me how I'm doing and I say "Could be better, could be worse." To say I'm doing well is a lie, even to say 'ok' is an understatement. I am not well physically, mentally, spiritually, or any other dimension. As much as I don't want to start this blog out negative and heavy, this is how I feel at the moment. Some day I will review this and ponder at how my life was at the time and be able to see all the good that came from the difficulties. 

I have a cold that has been stubborn and on/off for over a month now. There is a COVID outbreak in NSW and some cases in QLD so we have had lockdowns and mandatory masks in place. Azalea has also been sick so the lockdown has just helped us to not feel like we are missing out while being sick. We are almost better, but even just a cough is enough to not go anywhere. 

The army of gingerbread men that greated me after I took a nap one day

During this time, Sakura basically just sat and watched TV all day every day while I tried to do the bare minimum and rested with Azalea strapped to me in a carrier. Sakura would come in quietly and have me open snacks. One day she ate four bananas while I was resting. I'm grateful she let me sleep even with the excessive eating of bananas. I'm just glad she is content to take care of herself. I leave the back door unlocked too so she can go outside on the trampoline or swings. I try do something fun with her when I'm up for it and one day we painted and put together her lion puzzle. She loves it a little too much and I have had to glue multiple pieces to help it be stronger and the tail has broken off. 

I almost forgot to mention Sakura got her first haircut! She randomly asked me to cut her hair one day. So I got my hair scissors and did it while she played on her tablet. She is very happy with the result. I like that less food and stuff gets stuck in it. 

This led to me considering my own hair. I have REALLY bad scalp psoriasis right now (Note: I know lots of things I could do for this topically and internally. Nothing topical has been very effective and I'm not motivated for the internal remedies). The psoriasis makes me struggle to want to do anything with my hair which is coated with flakes. Also, because it's so long it takes a while to wash and I get tired of pulling handfuls of post-pregnancy hair out. One night before going to bed I cut off a large portion of my pony tail. I can't go to a hair dresser because I'm sick remember? Not the best decision, but I looked up a video and later cut it myself properly with layers. I'm actually quite proud of myself it turned out all right!

Azalea is learning to stand and pretty much only wants to stand all the time. She is no longer happy to crawl around the floor and so I have been struggling with her constant need to be held and stand while playing. She's also not a huge fan of the jolly jumper. I'm now learning just how different every child can be. Both girls at least love the water and bath time.

Azalea is also starting to eat some solids. I have given her avocado, smoothie, yoghurt, and those baby food pouches. 

I'm using an air-fryer for the first time! My pressure cooker was getting fixed and I decided to sell the refurbished one and buy the Instant Pot Duo/Air Fryer. So happy! I even got lucky and the repair people couldn't fix it and sent me a brand new pressure cooker so I got more money back than I expected. There were dramas involved in all this, but no reason to go into it. The best discovery was that my air fryer re-heated pizza actually was crispier and tasted better than when it was fresh! Winning!

The house build is .....moving along slowly. There is so much I could say, but it's exhausting. The building industry is having problems, they did some things wrong that are really difficult or impossible to fix, and the list goes on. We are cash poor now as we have exhausted all funds into this build and are paying rent and mortgage at the same time. There were many unexpected expenses I didn't account for too. Building a house is STRESSFUL! I'm so glad this is not our forever home because we are learning lots of things that we will do differently when we get to that stage. 

We did have some events when we were well enough. Azalea and I flew to Sydney for a day so I could get her US citizenship and passport sorted. That was a bit of a drama - I learned not to take my laptop because they made me find a place I could store it before I was even allowed to enter for my appointment. 

We visited the North Lakes library while they had this special children's display. Sakura LOVED it! She had a great time fishing, building lego's and towers. The highlight was her and another girl playing at the pretend campfire together. They roasted marshmallows, made waffles, and pretended to sleep. 

Sakura hasn't gotten to play with her friend Cristiano since his mom and I both had our second child. We arranged for a day for them to play and they had loads of fun. We were going to go together to my ward activity at a nearby park as well, but he fell asleep. Sometimes I wonder what its like to have your kids take regular naps. 

Sakura had a great time at the park anyway. A friend watched Azalea so I managed to help Sakura climb the ropes to get to the slide. Despite her whining often, I was proud of her for sticking with it and doing it more than once! 

That's life in a nut shell. I won't go into work stressors, but suffice it to say the end of financial year is my least favourite and most stressful time of year as a finance manager. I guess I should note that I am now officially a partner for the psychology clinic. More risk and liability, but I am happy to be of service with what skills I have to help make our dreams come true for meeting the needs of the community, psychologically and more.