A Little Bit Angry

I haven't written for a while. Life is pretty shit around here at the moment. As of Saturday I'll officially be a single Mum on a bloody pension due to the shop not drawing a wage anymore and my husband telling me almost two weeks ago that he "just can't do it anymore".

It's not fair. This wasn't in my life plan and I certainly didn't ask for it. Humiliation has been the overriding emotion this week. Having to line up at Centrelink and receive phone calls from the Department of Human Services who ask all sorts of lovely personal questions about sleeping arrangements, bathroom times and sexual activity so they can determine that I am now "un-partnered" but still living under the same roof. This is all so I can claim some measly amount that will pay the rent each fortnight but not the bills or groceries.

Yep! I've reached the angry stage. I no longer care that he has anxiety, that he's depressed. I'm sick of the "woe is me" and the constant complaining about how terrible his life is. I want to strangle him. I want to tell him "mate you don't know how great you have it!" I want to scream at him that he's giving up a life that lots of people could only dream of having.

Today a customer came in to buy his almost two year old girl a pair of shoes. He was a bus driver doing a charter from Melbourne to Sydney and stops over for a hour in Albury for a break every two days. While checking out the various styles he realised he couldn't remember the size and had to ring his Mum to ask her what to get his daughter. So I asked him if he was a single Dad and he told me his ex-wife ran off with an 18 year old boy and he was left to raise his daughter on his own. He drives a bus 10 hours a day which he hates but it makes good money and it's all the work he could get since he lives in a country town.

This is where I sit back and say "you could of had a life like that". You could have been married to an alcoholic who goes out partying every night and runs off with someone half her age. Instead my hubby has dinner on the table every night, a daughter who loves him, a clean house, an awesome job doing something he loves and getting paid well for it, good health and a wife who loves him and would stand by him always. But apparently that's all too hard for him.

Anyone who knows someone suffering from anxiety and depression knows that they can be volatile and difficult to read human beings. It's like playing pass the parcel all day everyday and you never know if when you finally remove that last layer if your going to get something good or are you going to get an explosion.

The last couple of years have been hard. I never know what mood he'll wake up in or what I'll come home to after work. He escapes reality by sitting on his computer all night. I think he's always found life difficult but now it's become way too hard and he can't take it anymore. Still, I'm angry. I want to shout "suck it up princess!" but I can't.

There are lot's of "if only's" at the moment. It's hard not to think that way.

The Week That Was......

God I've been hopeless this week with my blog! Totally neglected it. Even the awesome bloggers who have more than one child and are attending the blogging awards managed to post something.

Well if you've been wondering what I've been up to, here goes.....

• Working like a crazy woman in the shop to get all the product on the shelves so Mum doesn't have to do anything but sell while I'm away

• Sewing, sewing, sewing! I'm determined to feature some of my own creations at the next Little Me Markets

• Toddler wrangling. This consists of negotiating bath, PJ's and bedtime routine with a 20 month old. She's a determined little bugger who managed to scream her head off till 9:15pm last night!
• Getting Emily checked out by the doctor because she had an epic stack in our driveway and a day later her eye was still swelling.

• Cooking dinner every night. Doesn't sound like much but we always do at least one to two take out dinners a week as we both work and it can be hard to get something cooked in time for Emily (we don't get home till about 5:45pm and by then she's starving and crazy). The reason I'm cooking every meal is because we're trying to save money for our big trip to Ireland.
• I must be totally crazy because I also committed to another market before our trip. Now I'm doing the Little Me Market on 15th April in Wodonga and the Golden Horseshoe Festival in Beechworth on 7th April.

To top everything off I have developed a lovely sinus infection. Albury-Wodonga sits in a basin and pollen hangs around for most of the year. We have gorgeous Autumn trees but when their leaves begin to fall so do these potent fury spores along with their seeds. They cause havoc with my sinuses which over-react to the pollen and I inevitably get an infection. Now the infection has spread to my lungs so I've had to start two courses of anti-biotics or else it will become full blown bronchitis and I won't be able to travel.

Speaking of travel, I can't believe we're leaving in 2 1/2 weeks! I'm excited and nervous and very stressed. Taking a toddler on a plane is a daunting task in itself, but the longest flight I've been on is 5 hours to Bali. I didn't even get jet lagged. I have no idea how I'll handle the flight let alone how Emily will handle it. Then there's my hubby who is terrified of flying and will have to be sedated the entire trip, so I'll also have very little help with Emily. I'm just praying we have nice flight attendants who will give me some tips.

Anyway, I'll try to make an effort next week to blog a bit more often. What a crazy crazy life.....but I wouldn't have it any other way!

The Best Day Ever!!

Today was the best day ever! I mean it, it was awesome.

On Monday I put a Facebook post up saying there would be a big announcement on Thursday. On Tuesday I posted a reminder and on Wednesday I said I had not one but three big announcements to make.

Today was the Albury Gold Cup and a gazetted public holiday from midday which meant no childcare and therefor no shop open after midday. At first i thought it was a disaster. I need the income desperately at the moment and half day closing meant I would struggle to meet my sales target.

So these were my announcements that I made on Thursday:

Announcement 1: It's almost been a year since I bought the shop and to celebrate my 1 year anniversary we are doing a bit of a make-over in the shop. Over the coming weeks you'll see a new color scheme, play area, shop fittings (I've started this already) and a new logo. A huge thanks to Kath from Doodlebugs who has been madly designing the new bear and logo. I can't wait to show you all!

Announcement 2: With the success of new labels Gaia Organic Cotton, Eternal Creation, Mizzle, Walnut and Skeanie added to Bearly Worn over the last year I've decided to expand the range for summer 2012! I'm very pleased to announce I have just signed orders for Koko & Co., Milky and Freshbaked. There will be more to come so keep your eye on Facebook as I'll list them her as they're confirmed.

Final announcement for today! To celebrate Albury Gold Cup I am having a one day only SALE! Come in between 10am and 12pm tomorrow and get 10% discount on all new winter stock from Gaia Organic Cotton, Mizzle, Skeanie, Uh-Oh! sleepwear and... Walnut Melbourne. This is for TOMORROW ONLY with no exceptions, rain checks and not in conjunction with any other offer. So come in and save some $$$ on your kids winter wardrobes! See you tomorrow :-)

 

Well turns out a lot of people read my post about the sale and at 9:30am there were people lined up at the door. In two hours I did a weeks trade and I couldn't be more chuffed! Honestly i wasn't expecting this at all and today I finally feel like I made the right decision buying the shop. It's been a really hard slog this last 12 months and days like this give me hope that it's all worth it.

 

Anyway, not to worry. I hope tomorrow is just as good and that the trend continues. Next on my list of many things to do is the new radio campaign. Anyone good with writing jingles?

One Day at a Time

It was an absolutely huge market day and I wish I had of grabbed some photo's, but honestly it was just too busy!

It started at 5:30am with a toddler who decided it was time to get up and sang "mummy mummy mummy" for about 1/2 an hour before I finally dragged my tired ass out of bed.

After that it was go, go, go setting up my market stall and opening the shop for the annual Traders Market Day in Albury. Because we're a twin city with Albury on the NSW side and Wodonga on the VIC side, half the population got the day off with VIC Labour Day and they all came over for a family fun day at QEII Square.

All I can say is it was hugely busy, although I would have liked to be busier. I did better than this time last year but not as good as two years ago. Considering I now have new kid's clothing and shoes in the shop whereas last year there was only recycled kids clothing, I expected a much bigger days trade. But I guess with all the flooding and economy worries, a lot of people weren't spending.

Hubby picked up Emily who hardly slept today and was really grumpy so I decided we needed fish and chips for dinner as I just couldn't deal with sore feet, a grumpy toddler, a frustrated hubby and cooking tonight. But now I feel sooooo guilty that I ate all those chips. It's always when your busy and tired that you give in and go for the easy take away option. To make matters worse I'm sitting here watching The Biggest Looser and all the ads in between are weight loss program ads like Lite 'n' Easy and Weight Watchers!

Tomorrow morning I have to meet with the creative team from Aus Stereo to create my new radio ad. I've been trying to think of something creative and punchy that really gets the message about the shop across to my customers. I'm changing everything about the shop except the name and I'm trying hard to pick up those customers that never came in before because they only bought new and up-market brands. It's really hard changing the reputation of an existing business. When your a new business you have no reputation and so people naturally come in to see the new kid on the block. But when your an existing business and you already have a particular reputation, it is that much harder to convince people to come in and see what's new.

I think this week is going to be a "one day at a time" week. I literally have something major on every day and no time for rest. Here's hoping next week is a little less stressful!

The reason for everything I do......

No Rest for The Wicked

What a great weekend! I got no housework, cooking or washing done. But I did have a great time!

It started with Saturday morning coffee and a trip to the hairdressers. I was so scared because it was Emily's first haircut and I knew we'd be cutting off the last of her baby hair. Why is this such a big deal? I think after she started toilet training early and because she is so physically advanced and big for her age (at 20 months she's 15kg and 90.5cm tall), cutting off her baby hair means that she's now a little girl and I kind of want to hold onto Baby Emily for just a little longer.

My little girl is a bit of a loner most of the time. She can be shy and doesn't like strangers or big crowds. So our plan was to just sit and chat in the hairdressers and if she seemed comfortable enough we would cut her hair. It worked a treat. She even thought sitting in the big chair by herself was great fun and happily let the girl cut her hair. Then she stood in front of the mirror for ages checking out her new do.

The only thing she didn't like was getting her photo taken.

Since that went so well we went off to see my friend Mrs Doodlebug who's husband had gone away for the weekend to a music festival and she had the two boys and her 8 month old (also named Emily) at home. We decided to go for a short walk to the main street of Wodonga as the Harmony Carnivale was on and there were loads of live music, art and market stalls.

First thing Mrs Doodlebugs boys did when we got there was run off so we spent the next half hour searching for them, prams in tow. After finding the boys (I managed to sneak an Organic Olive Tapanade purchase in) and giving them a stern talking to about not scaring their Mum like that again, we sat down for coffee and scones and watched the local primary schools music group perform some singing and dancing. Emily thought it was awesome fun and even got up on her chair and did dance moves I've never seen her do before. See what happens in childcare!

We went home for her midday nap and she slept for 3 hours! Whenever she does that it means she'll be up late that night (usual bedtime is 7pm) so I suggested to hubby that we head back to the Carnivale for a curry dinner and to watch the parade. Emily had a ball and we ran into loads of friends. It was such a great family atmosphere and I definitely think we'll go back next year. Emily even had some butter chicken from the Indian curry stand.

Today was always going to be busy. One of my oldest friends is due to have a baby next week and I wanted to catch up with her before she went in for her scheduled Cesar. She has a little girl 6 months older than Emily and I thought they could have a play together.

Well they didn't exactly play, they wanted everything each other had and there was scratching, biting and a bit of slapping involved. How ironic though that because Emily used the big toilet my friends little girl had to use it too. My friend says she can never get her girl to use the toilet and it's great that she wants to copy what Emily did. On the other hand Emily has never really been very social with other kids and after the initial squabbles, my friends little girl came over and gave Emily a hug and a kiss. Emily thought that was great and reciprocated. It was so sweet!

I can see these two being great friends when they get older, just like her Mum and I were at school.

So after I put Emily down for her midday nap I headed back into town with my Dad for a fun filled afternoon of putting up new shop fittings and re-merchandising the shelves. We still have a long way to go but the beginning of the shops transformation is now underway and it's so exciting.

Showing off my new Gaia Organic Cotton range.

So tomorrow I have Market Day at QEII Square in Albury and it's going to be fine and sunny so I'm hoping for a huge day. I have a stall going and just finished packing the car withy everything I think I'll need. The shop will also be open so fingers crossed we get loads of people with kids looking for baby or children's clothing.

I'm trying to think of something special to do with Emily on Wednesday as it's our new day together. I'll be in Melbourne buying on Friday, then another market on Sunday (which I haven't even sewed anything for yet!).

So with such a busy week ahead I better go get some shut eye.

How was your weekend? 

When the Going Gets Tough, Country People Stick Together

It's been very eventful around here in the last week. Last Thursday there was an absolute deluge of rain in Albury resulting in Emily's new childcare centre being evacuated. We had a reprieve on Friday and thank God because thanks to the rain the shop had been dead all week. I couldn't even bribe people to come in with new WALNUT gumboots on sale.

Saturday came and the deluge returned. Albury has pretty good levy banks and drainage but my birth town of Urana 1 1/2 hours North West of Albury was hit hard and Sunday morning and so they began building up the levy at the nearby Columbo Creek.

Monday dawned and the sun came out, but the news came through that the levy at Columbo Creek had burst and the water was headed to the town.

This is the town yesterday aftenoon .....

I've never seen Urana drenched like this in all my 36 years. It is certainly higher than the 1982 floods I remember as a kid which came halfway up our driveway but never reached the farmhouse. It's definitely higher than the 1942 floods that the oldies are talking about in town.

Urana is a resilient town. It was once the epicentre of sheep and wheat trade in the district however with the removal of the railway it has slowly declined to a small village of 400. The people that remain are strong and carry a "she'll be right" attitude. Our old neighbour who is now in her 70's said "oh it's just a bit of water" when asked to evacuate last night.

I love this photo posted of one of the locals today on Facebook. Says it all really....

When you get lemons, make lemonade.....or row row row your boat.

Last night they took a vote in the town meeting as to whether they should evacuate and it was a unanimous no. The water began to subside today but they have a long way till their out of the woods. More water isexpected to move to the Billabong and Lake Urana and that will cause more flooding towards to end of the week. Then the clean up begins.

Country people stick together in times like this. They don't care for politics or who "should" be doing what. They just get on with it, they just do what has to be done. They're very matter of fact about it and I love it. There's no bullshit. They say it how it is and they do what has to be done.

Then they all go off to the pub afterwards for a beer.

Little Me Market

Very soon we have a new handmade market coming up in Wodonga called the Little Me Markets. It specialises in baby and children's handmade items and I'm determined to make something worthy of it.

My idea is simple. A bag. A library/childcare/swim/wet bag to be exact. I've ordered a heap of fabric on line because nobody likes to see fabrics they can buy at Spotlight.

Last night I began making my prototype with a cheap fabric I had lying around the house.

I started with a bag 30x40cm and my intention was to sew a clear plastic window on the front that you can slide a card or piece of paper into to write the child's name, class and school on. The plastic PVC was too thick and my sewing machine just pulled it along and wouldn't sew it to the fabric. The bag was also too small to be a decent library bag. Kids picture books can be big and i wanted a bag big enough to fit a towel if used for swimming classes.

This was my second attempt tonight and I purchase thinner PVC earlier today hoping I would be able to sew it on. I ended up hand blanket stitching it and I'm still not happy with the finial outcome. Whilst the rest of the bag is great, the plastic window looks shonky and hand stitching it means I can't turn out 20 or so bags by market time as it'll take too long.

So back to the drawing board and I'll have a third attempt tomorrow night.

One success of the night's crafting was my stand for the new boys accessories range I have at the shop. They're fabric covered magnets and badges and they look very cool. Apparently boys love these. I grew up in a house of girls so I'm taking Mum's with sons word for it!

The stand was originally a slate grey color so I covered it in white fabric and the two ribbons were hot glued to the top and bottom of the stand so I can attach the badges to them. I can't wait to put all the magnets and accessories on it tomorrow and see how it looks.

Finally this is my little munchkin this morning pretending to blog while we watched retro mummy on Channel 9.

I love that she's my walking advertisment for the shop in her Gaia Organic Cotton Tee and Leggins and her Walnut Melbourne Mary Jane shoes.

How Was Your Day Dear?

I'm single parenting at the moment as hubby is on "a business" trip. This business trip happens to be in Coffs Harbour in a 5 star luxury resort and his room, with it's king size bed and spa, overlooks the ocean. He tells me tonight that he spent a hard morning brainstorming in an IT workshop, then spent the afternoon in the pool and got sunburnt.

I on the other hand was woken at 6am by our screaming toddler, who by the way didn't go to bed until 10pm last night! My morning shower was taken whilst Miss E had her face pressed up against it crying "Daddy" and staring at me like I could magically produce him. After getting us both dressed and breakfast, cleaning the house, doing the dishes and putting on a load of washing I had to answer a phone call from hubby just as I was about to race out the door. Apparently it's not nice to just hang up on someone who tells you they just woke up (it was 8:30am) and what a glorious sleep he had. Really? Do I GAF???

Dropping Miss E off at daycare I politely ask if they can please make sure she wakes up at 1:30pm as she hasn't been going to sleep at night and I want to tire her out so she'll go straight to bed tonight. This is followed by a lecture from the childcare worker advising me I enable her too much by giving her too many cuddles and I should just let her cry it out. She tells me they have no trouble getting her to sleep during the day. Well that's just great!

I get to work and my back room looks like a nuclear stock explosion. There is literally no room to move and so after spending the first hour rearranging I finally am able to make my way to the kitchen where I find a mouse has accidentally got caught in the trap my Dad set behind the fridge 6 months ago. I feel sorry for him. I also feel disgusted and dry retch as I pick up the trap and throw the entire thing in the bin. I'll just buy a new one, it's too much to ask me to get the thing out of there!

I go to put pictures of my new Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 collection on my website and realise that my computer just wiped the shop copy of the stock images. Aaaarrrggghhh!!! Another job I'm going to have to do at home on the trusty Toshiba.

Gaia Organic Cotton Winter 2012 Preview

 After this discovery I decided to have a go at doing a new window for the shop. Originally I wanted to do a Red and White theme for Valentines Day, but my new Eternal Creation range hasn't arrived yet and so I'm having to make do with Pink and Blue. I think it still turned out pretty good.

 Anyway, picked up Miss E from childcare and found they had let her sleep for over two hours today so she was not tired at all. She also had a big scratch on her face which they couldn't tell me how it happened. This is not the first time I've had these kind of issues, however luckily we are on the waiting list for our preferred childcare centre in central Albury and hopefully soon we'll have a great place where I don't have to worry.

Tonight it took until 9pm to get Miss E off to sleep. We raced around the back yard when we got home, made dinner, had a bath, watered the garden, read books and played until she was exhausted at 7pm. Then as soon as she lied down and I turned out the light the crying game started. I ignored, painted some new shop fittings, did another load of washing, took out the garbage, checked Facebook, until I heard the whiny cry change to a distressing scream so I raced back in to find her soaked in sweat and she had vomited all down the front of her PJ's.

I cleaned her up, gave her some warm milk, cuddles and kissed her and told her it would be OK, put her back in bed and held her hand until she finally drifted off to sleep.

Then hubby called........

Seriously I couldn't give a toss how wonderful your damn resort is and how you plan to take me there one day!

Apparently it's rude to hang up on someone when there telling you how wonderful their life is when your day has been so shitty.....

How was your day?

My Sensitive Soul

I've just read a post by Mrs Woog about her son and his feelings about his new class and it's made me think about my own little miss.

I was a very independent child who could always walk into a room full of strangers and just start talking away about whatever was going on in my head at the time. It got me in trouble on more than one occasion.

My little Miss E on the other hand is very different to that. She is clingy and sensitive and doesn't like disruption to her routine. She gets very attached to her carers at childcare and if a new person comes in she freaks out.

Last weekend we went to a birthday party. It was only the second one we've been too since I lost my mothers group when we moved to Albury. The party was for the three year old child of a friend of mine so when we arrived there were about 30 kids running around in the play centre. Miss E totally lost it. She clung to me like glue, arms and legs wrapped tightly around me and any attempt at putting her down resounded with "no, no, no!"

Luckily we were late and they were up to cutting the cake so while all the kids went into the food room to sing happy birthday, Miss E and I had the bouncy castle all to ourselves. At first she just stood on it looking scared while I made a complete fool of myself leaning onto it (because the age limit is 8) and saying "Oooohhh, aaaahhhh, c'mon jump!" and holding her hands attempting to get her to jump. After a couple of minutes she moved, then tried to jump, then giggled, jumped again and before you knew it she was having a great time.

The other kids came out of the food room one by one after about half an hour so by then we had moved to the slippery slide and she was pretty calm. About 10 minutes before the party ended Miss E decided it was safe to play with the other kids.

I know now that I should get to a party early so Miss E has time to gradually get used to the kids arriving and is not overwhelmed by huge crowds. I also know I may have to ease her into playing with others and be aware when things might change to help her adjust.

Parenting is definitely challenging. I have very little patience and Miss E challenges that every day. Maybe that's why we were put together. She teaches me to be patient and I teach her confidence.

By the way Mrs Woog from Woogsworld is up for a Bloggie. I think she's awesome and if you agree you should definitely vote for her at http://2012.bloggi.es/