12 Resolutions: October (and September recap)

This year I'm playing along with #12Resolutions on Twitter and Facebook. The idea is to set yourself short-term, achievable goals, one each month. 

For September my goal was to do floor exercises for 15 minutes a day. 

Well. 

Not much to recap.

I forgot my resolution! Literally forgot it. I completely forgot I had any resolution going on at all, so needless to say, floor exercises did not happen. We had a lot going on in September - it was a busy and tumultuous month.  No doubt exercises would have been very helpful, if I had remembered I was supposed to be doing them.

'No I can't remember!' by Neil Moralee, Flickr

Anyway, we shall move on.  

For the rest of October (we're already halfway through!) I am making a simple resolution, to get more sleep.  We're approaching the end of the year and things are getting busier. The past couple of months I've found it quite hard to keep up with things and keep my equilibrium, and sleep can only help.

What's on your to-do list this month?

Drama Mama

Parents who don't do paid work outside the home will sometimes blurt out how it must be nice escaping the chaos of home to go to an office with non-sticky surfaces, cafe coffee and lunch breaks, and they are right of course. When your children are very young, work is lovely (and yes, easy) compared to staying at home.

What's hard is managing it - the juggle, the extra organisation required, the 'double shift' piling laundry, food prep and cleaning on top of a day at work, and managing the emotions of tired and overwrought family members - primarily yourself but also the children.

The other bit that's hard is The Drama.

I can't come in today, my kid's sick. I have to leave early, my kid's sick.
I have to go, my kid's just had a melt-down at school.
I'm going to be late, my kid's sick.
I need to work from home next week, my kid has a specialist appointment.
Sorry I'm late, I just couldn't get my kid ready on time today.
Sorry I'm late, my kids are sick and I had to take them to my mother's so I could come in today.
Oh, can I work from home every Thursday for awhile, so I can attend [insert crucial school/kid-related event here]?
Sorry I'm late, my kid got head lice and I had to shampoo the flammable chemicals out of her hair this morning. Oh and I have to leave right on 5 because it's my turn to do the after-school-care pick-up. And can I leave early on Friday, as I have to take my kids to the school disco which starts at 5pm?

All these are not including the myriad number of times you don't attend school events, get a friend to give your kids a lift, have your mother come by the house at 6.30am so you can leave on time, dose your kid with Panadol and send her to school and hope for the best, or win an hour-long argument with your spouse about whose turn it is to take time off work to tend to a sick child.

To make up for late starts I usually take a shorter lunch break, or I stay back a couple of times a week (and that always has consequences at home).  I'm no martyr and my job and employers and my manager are all fantastic, so I'm not complaining. Not at all.

I'm highlighting how embarrassing it is, sometimes. I don't want to be Drama Woman. I don't want to take advantage of my employer's awesome understanding and flexibility. But sometimes you have dramas.

When I was twenty-six I worked for awhile at a cafe run by two sisters. They were fairly wealthy and people grumbled that their husbands had bought the cafe for them so they would have something to do. But they learned the job quickly and they worked really hard, and they were there every day. One day one of them had her two little kids with her during closing time, and while she tried to pitch in and do all her usual work, she just couldn't in the end, so she asked me to do some extra stuff she would normally do herself. I was tired and grumpy and I did not cut her much (any) slack. I was really annoyed she had the kids there. I made it pretty obvious I was annoyed. I had to stay back later because she had kids with her, who did not belong in the workplace. I was not happy that the rest of us had to make up for her (obvious!) lack of organisation and work ethic!

Did I ever give any thought to the fact she turned up every day and worked hard, and never mentioned her kids or how she juggled her life? Did I even consider the fact that this was the only time we ever saw her kids, and that she might have been truly stuck this one day?  Did I have any compassion for what she was dealing with that day? No, I am sorry to say, I did not.  All I saw was... drama!

You can buy this shirt at Sugarbunny Shop

Things I Think While Using Public Transport

• Jeez, people are funny looking

• Where do I go for my train? Why can I never remember which platform?

• Man it's crowded.

• Still so many people hanging out "under the clocks", are they still meeting friends there? That's what we did before mobile phones.

• Why does this concourse still always smell of urine? It's open 24 hours, it's floodlit, there are shops and people and police everywhere. When are people pissing?

• Why are there so many cops here, what's going on? Maybe this is one of those terror threat things, should I be worried? Be alert, not alarmed. God, what a joke. Hoodies, backpacks, burqas. If I were a radicalised young Australian where would I take a bomb, here or Chadstone? Surely Chadstone makes more sense and would be easier. God, please let it be Chadstone and not here. Oh my god I can't believe I just thought that, I didn't mean it. What's happening to us, this terror alert crap is corrupting us all. Or maybe just me, I'm a bad person. No, I'm a good person for recognising I might be a bad person. Oh god, not this stupid feedback loop again. The loop - I need to make sure I'm on a Loop train. Does this train go through the Loop? Shit, I didn't pay attention and now I don't know. What station is this?

• OK, do I need to be at the front of the train or the back of the train? I can never remember, I never pay attention. Oh my god, like it matters! What, I have to walk an extra 50 metres when I get out? No, it's about time and efficiency, it feels good to manage this properly and get out just where you need to be. I rarely do that though. 

• Oh right, back of the train. I'll remember that next time.

• Seats, seats, are there any seats? There's one but it's in the middle. There's got to be an edge seat somewhere. Shit, I missed it. Should have taken the middle one. But so uncomfortable. Standing is better. Long time to stand though. I can't find a comfortable way to hold my bag. I should have brought a cross-body bag instead of this handbag with tiny straps I have to hold. It's hurting my back, the drag on my arm downwards. I'm not game to put it on the floor though. Damn, commuting is so much easier for men without handbags.

• Who the hell keeps their bag on a seat next to them when the train is full?

• Ugh, this person, hogging the edge seat. Just move over, would you? So annoying.

• I'm just going to stay on this edge seat, people can step over to get to the middle. It's too squishy in there, my legs don't fit and I get cramps. 

• Man, walking three blocks uphill from the station to my work has killed me! I'm so unfit. What's happened to me, I used to walk everywhere.

• It's nice to sit and read while commuting to work. Much better than driving. Though I do miss listening to Red and then AM on the radio. I could stream it on the phone. But how much data does that use? Funny how radio is no longer going to be free once it's all digital. Analogue radio is free but digital radio isn't, that's quite a change really. Like everything these days, every element unbundled and costed out, let pricing dictate behaviour. Bloody economists. 

• I want to play Candy Crush but it's too embarrassing on the train. Maybe another game. Is Subway Surf embarrassing? I'll just read the news instead. Twitter is ok, I can scroll Twitter. Not Facebook, obviously. Facebook is embarrassing. Why the hell do I care what people think about what I'm doing on my phone? Well that's just how society works, it's human psychology, quite normal.  

• What station is this? Should I call Y for my lift now or is it too early? They don't have enough of those train maps up on the walls, why is that? They used to be everywhere. Oh, I see, the trains now have bigger windows, there's not as much wall space. Hey, remember back when they had poetry on the train walls, was that here or in London? That was nice.

• Oh this poor woman with a pram and crying baby. How awful. Ugh, hope that kid stops crying soon though. Maybe I should try and cheer it up. But what if I fail, that would just be awkward. 

• What stop is this? Oh my god, have I gone past my station? It's so dark out there, I can't see a thing. Where are we? 

• Going in to work on the bus and train is OK, quite nice actually. But man, coming home sucks. Too crowded, and the trip takes too long. I'm exhausted. It saves money though. But shit I'm so tired. Bugger it, tomorrow's Friday, I'm driving.

"Commuting II" by Rebecca Wilson via Flickr Creative Commons