I am trying out a few variations to my cake baking.
You see, cakes taste lovely because they are full of butter, sugar and other yummy things. They are fattening. You can add wholemeal flour if you like to make you feel they are a bit healthy. Or sultanas. Or put fruit in.
How about saying to yourself that if the cake has wholemeal flour, bananas, sultanas and some nuts in the recipe you are somehow getting part of the food groups covered for the day.
Except for that ingredient butter. That is what makes the cake so delicious and moist. Especially if you are making vanilla cup cakes. Mmmmm.
Well, in my efforts to make my treats a bit healthier I substituted apple sauce for the butter.
The recipe I had was for a seriously buttery batch of cup cakes. I worked out that the butter alone added 2178 calories to the recipe. So, per cup cake the butter alone would have been an extra 100 calories per cupcake on top of the flour, sugar and egg portion. And then there is the saturated fat portion. It's just not healthy.
I don't use margarine because that is full of strange ingredients that I am not keen on.
So, tonight I made a batch of cup cakes using this replacement.
They looked very nice.
Just as a cup cake should look.
However, they were actually kind of disgusting. Sort of chewy and tasteless and stodgy. Which could be good in a strange way because you would not go back for seconds.
K said that they could use something moist in the middle and he only ate one. Normally he would eat two or more.
It reminds me of the time I made a low fat vegan banana cake. It was grey in colour and most unpleasant in taste. Never again.
Now, what shall I do with the remaining 22 rubbery cup cakes? There is no way I am taking any to work. I could never live down the ribbing I would get. They would be thrown at me. Bounce off my head.
Ah, I have it. They would do very well in a trifle. Just add loads of custard, cream and jelly in the mix.
Oh, yeah, and some tinned fruit. You know, to make it "healthy".
It's Sunday and I am once again enjoying being a lazy sloth.
Not really lazy but just enjoying being at home. It's cool outside and not much to do. I suppose some gardening could be done but we scratched around in the front yard like two lazy chooks and pulled out some weeds yesterday. In fact, I finally pruned a very big native bush that impinged on the driveway and made getting out of the car on a wet day particularly unpleasant. I am quite attached to it as it has very tactile foliage. But, it needed a trim and will grow back.
I've been out in the half finished studio feeling very excited. The skylight is in and the roof on so it is now all waterproof. On Tuesday they will put in the insulation, clad the walls with timber lining boards and put up the ceiling. Then the electrician will fit off what needs fitting off. The room even has heating and cooling. Once I paint inside the floor goes down. The count down to moving in my stuff is officially on.
On Friday night K and I went for a run. Five km's in about 30 mins which is good enough. Tonight we will do seven. It's easier to motivate oneself if another person is involved. Yesterday morning I was out of bed early for an exercise class. It was 2 degrees and ice was on the window of the car and all over the grass where we exercised. But the sky was blue and the sun shining on the icy ground. My favorite mornings. I felt really very fresh in my head. Adding more exercise in the routine makes a difference I think. I like that I am doing a charity run. It makes me more interested in getting out and doing it. It's not just for me but for others.
Sunday has become a rather indulgent day for me in that I have been watching old movies on television. Anything from the 1930's to the 1980's. It's hard to believe that the 1980's is so far away now. I left school in 1980. Then I spent the next thirty years growing up.
Anyway, back to the movies. One thing I notice when watching old movies is that people look real. They look like people I might see at work. Or down the street. Or at the beach. You know what I mean. They have uneven teeth. Or wrinkles. They are not manufactured looking. And not strangely smooth like some sort of waxwork figure. They almost look their age. One of them I watched had Bette Davis in it and she was about 53 and looked like a fantastic wrinkly old woman. It was great to see.
Today I was watching Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It's not the first time I have watched it. Each time I watch it I think "oh, not this again" and once I get into it I see things in it that I had forgotten. One thing that stands out is the colouring of everything. The lighting. It must be the use of real film as opposed to digital. It's so raw and natural. I could imagine looking out of a window and seeing those same colours whereas when I watch movies these days the colour looks sterile or something. I cannot quite explain it except to say that it does not look real anymore.
But I suppose I should ask what is real anyway. I get up each morning, shower, wash and blow dry my hair and put make up on. Does that make me a bit real? It might be three times a year I don't wash my hair. I have big hair. I have hair that likes to frizz and I can look like a witch especially now I have more grey hair. Whilst I don't care who sees me without my make up I am not so keen to be seen with my hair all natural and that is because it just looks too scruffy.
However, after watching old movies and seeing people who looked real I thought I may upload a photo of myself that shows me sans anything. This was the morning after the Oxfam walk. I had washed my hair the night before and gone to bed with it damp. It was such a rare event to see it so fluffy that K wanted to take a photo for posterity.
I am hideously tired in the photo so I don't care about the tired and unmade face on show but when I look at the hair I just cannot ever imagine me just letting it go natural ever. I intend to wash and blow dry my hair for ever and a day.
Also, just want to say once again how much I love make up and hair product.
That photo might be the "real me" but putting on make up and doing my hair is what makes the "really happy me".
This morning I made the fatal mistake of putting on a pair of cherry red tights.
I hate the colour and I don't know why I even bought them. But I did and now feel I should wear them at least a few times before they become plant ties or something.
I am wearing them with a denim skirt and feel frumpy. And I am wearing a cardigan.
But the worst thing is the tights match the hand towel in the work toilets.
Great, years ago I would have worried about them matching someone elses tights but these days a matching hand towel is just as depressing.
Yes, here I am all alone in the office having stumbled into work at the usual time of 10.00 am.
It is a late start but I work until 5.30 so it's just the same sort of day. Normally I get in by 9.30 but I have once again been sleeping like shite which makes for a hard start.
Anyway, that is not why I am blogging from work to talk about my shite sleep. I am blogging because it is Friday and the week has been very intense here with lots of number crunching, setting up cost centres and other numbery kind of things. I love it but it does kind of sap the brain by the end of the week.
Once I wake up a bit more I will get stuck into work. Right now my eyes are still very unfocused and even my glasses don't help. I wonder if the eyes are the last thing to wake up? It feels like it.
Since I have been talking about my son a bit over the past few days I might as well continue.
The other day I came home from work and he was in the office. I asked him how his day was and what he did. Which is kind of stupid of me since he does the same thing. Gets up, schleps around in his pj's unless otherwise instructed, opens the fridge and pantry and then facilitates from Xbox to computer.
So his response to my question was this.....
"Well, I got up after you left for work, had a shower and got dressed, ate a bowl of fruit salad with yoghurt and then went for a 50km bike ride".
I think he could make a good politician. He said exactly what I wanted to hear.
Even though my son goes to bed before K and I do most nights, he does not fall asleep straight away.
He listens to the conversations that go on after he has gone to bed. Not because he is going to hear anything he shouldn't, but because he (like any child) lies in bed just listening to the sounds around him until he drifts off.
Half listening, half thinking. You know that place in your head.
Anyway, often, just before I go to bed and want to see if he is awake I say the following:
"So, K, which boarding school are we sending S to?"
or
"When do you think S should go to boarding school?".
Or something along those lines.
He used to just reply with a "Noooooooooooooo. I won't go" and some laughter.
Now he replies "I'll go to boarding school after I put you two into the nursing home".
It's funny just how many ways there are to parent a child and how each parent thinks that their own way is the best way.
I would not be lying in saying that plenty of people I know think that my husband and I are soft and slack parents.
Considering we come from verydifferent families, we are in agreement in how we should parent our son. We respect his wishes, we consider his personal likes and dislikes, we discuss things with him and always take into account his own beliefs and values. As far as we are concerned we afford him all the respect we would another adult but without dumping on him the responsibility of having to behave like one. That will come in its own good time.
My brother and older sister are of the "teach the kids a lesson" kind of parenting. Which I loathe by the way.
For example, they believe that if you want to protect your child from the hot oven door you would press their little soft and pink hand onto the door to teach them that it is hot and eventually that would learn to stay right away from it. This technique would be applied from a young age and repeatedly until the child somehow gets it.
I would rather keep the child from the hot oven door until they are old enough to understand the consequences of what happens should they touch it. That might involve keeping a barrier around the oven and an eye constantly on the child.
When my older sister discovered that my son slept in bed with my husband and I she was disgusted. He was three at the time. She said that when he came into our bedroom in the middle of the night we should put him outside in the dark to teach him a lesson. Fuck knows what lesson he could learn there. Perhaps the lesson of cruelty. By the way, he made the transition to sleeping in his own bed, with the light off and the door shut when he was ready.
When my brother comes around here and I see the way he is with his two boys it actually makes me sick to the stomach. He never stops to listen to what they have to say. If they annoy him he just grabs their arm really hard and yells at them and imposes his mighty bulk over them. It does my head in.
And, he gets shitty at me because I have no problem letting my son do what he likes around the house. I never force him to mow the lawn, or hang out the washing, or clean the toilet or weed the garden however, if I need help with anything S will get up and help without complaint or resentment. Okay, a little whinge now and then. But then I also whinge.
My brother's children are forced to do everything my brother tells them. It's his way or the highway (or sent to their room). He treats them like a lump of putty for him to mould into the shape he approves of.
My brother came around the other day and went on about the fact that K should have made S do such and such outside. Maybe my brother should have some more kids if he wants to have someone do stuff outside.
My boss tells me I should make my son do more sport. I say "yeah, right, get him to kick a footy around when he hates sport". That I should make him to this that and the other. Why it bothers him enough that he thinks it is okay to comment intrigues me, especially if you saw the gut on my boss. Maybe he should take a leaf out of his own book.
I just say that the teenage years should be the wonderful years. The fact my son likes to sleep in on holidays, play on the computer, play on the Xbox, drink out of the juice bottle, sometimes wear his pyjamas all day long and pull faces at my very ordinary cooking efforts makes me feel happy for him. He is happy. His head is in a good place. He is embracing and enjoying his brief and important teenage years and isn't that what he should be doing?
Well, maybe we are doing it all wrong and S will be laying around in his pj's on the weekend ten years from now. Then everyone can take great pleasure in saying "I told you so". Who cares. Not me.
Next time someone alludes to the fact I am a slack parent who also does not make her son eat veges I might get them to ring him and ask him personally what he thinks of his shit mother and father.
He will say he loves us because he tells us all the time.
Actually, he will more than likely tell them he has booked our place in the nursing home already.
He has joined the landscaping section of the company. In fact, it is a separate company entirely and run from the office. My boss is his brother in law.
Over the past two weeks he has had to get to know the dynamics of the place and of the people - me being one of them.
When you have been working with the same team for years on end you are not particularly aware of your own "style" and how a new person may perceive you.
Anyway, for the first few days I was very polite. Then a phone call came through and I had to pass it on to one of the Project Managers. As I did so I may have expressed my feelings about this particular person on the other end of the phone (deservedly so). I may have said something like "It's f*****g such and such". In fact, I may have dropped the F bomb a lot.
I then turned to the new person and said that I hoped he was not offended by my language because it's not about to change. He has come from corporate where you are not even allowed to tell a joke in case you offend someone.
Fortunately, for his sake, he was quite comfortable with what I said. Too bad if he wasn't. I came first so he has to fit in with me.
Today the conversation came around what everyone did on the weekend. I said I went for a 5km run on Sunday evening and now have to do one three times a week to get fit enough to do the 10km run at the end of August.
"Are you really into sport Linda?" asked New Man.
"No, not sport. I took up exercise after I turned forty because it is one of the best things for keeping me from having to go back on anti depressants," I told him.
"Oh, I would not have thought that you would have depression. You are not sad or anything," he said.
I said something about people with depression are usually the last ones you think might have it. And that being depressed is not always about being sad.
It's a funny thing how people think depressed people must be sad all the time. I suppose that if you have never been on that side of the fence you could never get it.
Then there are those who think that people who are depressed should pull up their socks, be grateful for what they have, take more vitamin B, stop feeling sorry for themselves and other helpful snippets of advice. A while ago my mother was finally diagnosed with depression and went on medication. She actually apologised to me for being so unsupportive when I had post natal depression. She thought I was just really uptight, anal and overly anxious. Which is kind of bizarre considering she spent six weeks in a retreat after she tried to commit suicide when I was six. You think she might have twigged that her own daughter was a bit more than "anal".
Years ago I never mentioned anything about depression because it was my thing and what's to mention anyway? And I never wanted anyone to treat me differently. Now I don't care who does or does not know because the fact is that to me it is just a word that gives a name to why I think the way I do. Or act the way I act. Or have mood swings that are noticeable, especially now I allow them to just happen rather than trying to hide them.
Anyway, at the end of the day I am just me and all that goes with being me.
It's taken this long for me to get used to it.
So it is not a big ask to expect anyone else to take a week or so is it?
It is Sunday afternoon and I am schlepping around in my yoga pants. Not doing anything in particular.
Outside is cold and wet and not particularly inviting. Days like this just make me want to stay inside and schlepp!
I did manage to bolt outside and prune the rose bushes in the front yard. Just as I was hastily finishing off the last bush it started to rain again. Big, heavy, cold and wet drops plonking on my head and back. Slowly at first, warning me of what was to come, and then with great meaning as I just made it inside the warm interior of the house.
My garden is in great need of my attention. Each time a day with reasonable weather comes around I find an excuse to do something more pleasurable. I am becoming a bit lazy perhaps? Or is it that I know the cycle of maintenance and know that no matter what I do to the garden I am going to have to do it again and don't feel that pressing need to be perfect anymore.
One thing that is moving along nicely is the new studio. The roof is on, the skylight is in and the exterior is finished. Next week the electrician will come along to rough in for the power and lighting. The reverse cycle air conditioner will be installed. Once these two things are done the insulation and interior finishes will be finished. It's not far off.
I designed it and love its contemporary look. The deck, however, was added by my boss to balance it out. I am terribly excited about it. Once I finish my last painting off I will be starting another one that has been sitting in my head for months. It's been very difficult not having any outlet.
A few people have said that in a few years my son can live out there. I say he can have the old studio if he really wants to sleep in an outhouse. Somehow I imagine he won't do either. It's a bit chilly out there and a long way to the toilet at 2.00 am in the morning.
Last night I watched a lovely little movie on television. It was called The Waterhorse. I remember when K and I took our son to see this at the flicks. The main character reminded me of S at the time. Something about the way he spoke and saw the world. Last night when I watched it again I felt this painful melancholy for time that has gone. I know it is normal to feel these sorts of emotions but it hurts in that bittersweet way that I kind of love and hate at the same time.
There are those lovely years where kids love hanging out with their parents. Then come the years where they need to separate. Although I miss those early years, I really love his teenage years. I love seeing him becoming a young man. He is taller than me and his voice deep. The humour he has developed is sharp and wonderfully full of teenage cynicism. He watches YouTube videos that are full of the comedy for his age group.
When school finished last term he brought home his report. He is good at school. Above average in some subjects and average in others. In sport he is woeful. But I don't care about that. Having met his sports teacher I just think what a "numpty" he is. Just does not get kids who are not into football or other team sports. Fortunately my son does let his lack of interest in being sporty have any impact on his sense of belonging. My husband and I made sure of that during his early school years. We both were non sporty people as children and were made to feel very second rate at school and were never going to let S feel the same.
He is currently on school holidays and enjoying being a truly self indulgent fourteen year old. Actually, he seems older than fourteen in a way. Perhaps that is because he is an only child or something.
He has slept in every day and then facilitated between playing Xbox or being on the computer. Now and then he eats randomly. Enough to keep his stomach from rumbling I suppose. He is not a pantry or fridge muncher. He eats when hungry and stops when full.
We recently let him put himself to bed on some nights. Some self regulation to try out. These little steps of independence or something. He was in bed at 1.30 am a couple of times and then embraced the luxury of sleeping in the next day. But that fun is over now as we have a week to get him back into routine for school.
As parents we are fairly permissive. I don't even think that is the right word. We don't have too many rules. But then, he never really asks to do anything that is questionable. He does not even own a mobile phone and has not asked for one. On the weekend he stays home just does his own stuff. Sometimes I see loads of kids walking around the street on the weekends. Friends hanging out. I asked him why he never has friends over. He said he sees kids at school all week and that is plenty of human interaction for him. He enjoys his own company and prefers his online friends (some of whom are school friends). By being online it is in his control as to how much or how little interaction he has with them.
Should I be worried that he has not many friends? He is sociable when he needs to be. Looks people directly when he speaks to them. Although reserved he is not lacking confidence. Anyway, there is not much I can do about it even if I was worried because I think that he chooses to be that way because it suits him and not because he is shy or lonely.
I know that there is a thought that online friends are not ideal but you know, for some people they are the way that suits. Not everyone wants to spend time with people one to one too often. Maybe people are shy and it is the only way they can connect with others.
Yesterday I was sociable however and went with my niece to see the movie Bridesmaids. It was a very funny movie. More a chick flick with some totally gross scenes but I did laugh a lot during it. Of course, it still had to end with a sappy Hollywood kind of ending but I guess you cannot do much about that.
We then came back to my house where we chatted for a further couple of hours. When I am with my niece I feel very normal because she has the same way of thinking as I do. When nutty people are together they feel very normal because we all "get" the world the same way. It's like two aliens hanging out and catching up.
Now I am thinking about going down the street to do some food shopping. But the weather is still grey, cold and wet and I am putting it off as long as possible.
Tonight I have to go for a run. I have signed up for a ten kilometre charity run on 28th August so have to start turning my log legs into jog legs again. The run raises money for mental heath so the cause is a good one. The actual run is a rather horrible one up hill and down hill.
When I first said I could not run 10km's another girl in the class said to me "I don't get how you think you cannot run 10 km when you walked 100km straight for the Oxfam walk?". Yeah, I don't get it either. I think it is because the word run equals pain but walk equals tame. I dunno.
We have been having a plethora of television advertisements appearing lately offering the wonderful chance to have a prepaid funeral. To save the children the stress.
The advert always has a "groovy" older couple featured. Straw hat for woman, jumper over shoulders for the man.
I hate those adverts and I hate the whole patronising tone of them.
You know what else I hate, the concept of prepaid funerals. You can argue to me as much as you like how practical and how thoughtful it is for "old folk" to organise their funerals to reduce the stress on their children who will no doubt be so crippled by grief that they will not be able to handle the process of burying their loved ones. Guess what? I don't care. I will never buy into that concept.
I can accept that there may be circumstances where a pre-organised funeral is suitable but to do it just to help your children out is bizarre. There are a number of processes in life that we really need to be involved in.
Hatches, Matches and Dispatches. Yes, we say hello, good luck and goodbye for each of them. The last one being the most difficult and the most important for those left behind.
My brother inlaw's have paid for their funerals. They don't want their children to have to worry about it all. In fact, his mother in law said "oh, and I have organised such nice flowers". You have got to be fucking joking. She was fifty five when they organised it all. How depressing is that.
I want my son to find the organising of his parents funerals emotional. And difficult. And sad. And even overwhelming. Because it is part of life. Part of saying goodbye. It is how it is meant to be. I would expect him to shed a tear or two and find it all a bit hard. What is wrong with that?
Sure, make a few notes of who to call when you peg it. Or your favorite music. Or a poem or two to read out. Pin it on the fridge and make changes to it if you like as you get older and your mind changes. Even put aside some money for it in an interest bearing account (let's be practical at least). But to actually prepay and organise it all thirty years beforehand is woeful.
I am all for being organised in certain areas of life but this one does my head in.
It should be inconvenient, sad and all those things but it should also be a perfect time to get a new perspective on life and where you fit into it.
Have I mentioned how much I dislike the typical Alpha Male?
I like nice guys. I am married to one. Intelligent, kind, thoughtful and normal.
The one thing I liked about my husband when first I met him was that he did not talk about himself. About how good he was. How much money he earnt. How good he was at sport. He talked about stuff and I talked about stuff.
I work with Alpha Males. They talk about themselves a lot. There are a couple who don't and they stand out like dog's balls in the building industry.
My dad was a typical one. So is my brother.
Had I married and Alpha Male you can bet I would be divorced by now or they would have been stabbed during one of my unstable moments (which were frequent when young and still happen).
I was once engaged to marry one of them and he almost put me off men for life. Posturing, egocentric, beer drinking prick that he was. I dodged a bullet there by getting out when I did.
Maybe I don't like them because I could be an Alpha Female and you can't have one of those married to the male version. I like to think I am not but I sometimes wonder.
You see, I can be very difficult when things don't go my way.
I like things a certain way. I have a certain picture in my head about what the day is going to bring and when it does not bring it I get highly agitated and confused which leads to me be very difficult to rationalise with.
My mother used to say to me that I had unrealistic expectations of how things should be. And she may well be right.
The other day I was talking to my son about something that we were planning and he said "Don't tell me anything about it because it might not be what you say it is and I will be disappointed". So maybe he has a bit of that in him as well.
The other thing which I hate to admit to is that I just cannot stomach being told what to do. At all. Not even a little bit. A suggestion from someone will be considered briefly. But generally I meet any advice, offers of help, suggestions and other similar things, with polite facade as deep down I am usually thinking how much I hate being told what to do.
Over the years men have said to me that I must be hard to be married to but my husband says I am not. Just like owning a foreign car, you need to look after it and know what buttons to never push.
I am covered in buttons. I avoid situations that may cause a few of those buttons to be pushed which then leads to sever anxiety for hours, if not days.
Here is the sort of conversation that can lead to anxiety:
Project Manager calls me;
PM: What screws do you want for the decking on your studio Me: What do you mean? PM: Galvanized or Steel. Me: Which ever lasts longer. PM: They are both the same. Me: What? Why do you ask? Which one looks nicer? PM: I should not have rung you should I? Me: No. Then I spend the next four hours wondering which one is best. Finally stop thinking when I get to bed.
Conversation about portable phone at work - me speaking to K about how to use it:
Me: How do I answer and incoming call on the portable phone? K: You press the talk button, then star and then zero. Me: Which is the talk button? K: The main button. Me: Main button, then star then zero. Got it.
Get to work. Completely forgotten. Tell everyone it is star then zero. Or talk button then zero. Or talk then zero. Get confused and ignore ringing phones while I am eating lunch. Later I ask K how to do answer the phone again. He tells me and then asks if it rings. I have no idea if it rings or not.
Conversation about electrician:
K: I cannot be here to meet the electrician on Thursday. Me: Okay K: Can he come another day? Me: No, I want the studio finished sooner rather than later. Write down what you need me to talk to the electrician about. K starts to tell me what needs doing. I start to panic. There is no way known I can remember one word of what is being said. Me: Write it down. Don't tell me. Put it in writing. Then I can read it out.
Conversation with carpenter:
C: What door do you want for the studio. Me: What are you talking about? I am having the spare door down in the factory. I told the PM about it. C: It's too small Me: So, just get me one like that. C: You can go to the Door Store and pick one out. Me: You want me to go to a place with hundreds and hundreds of doors and pick one out? I will be there all day. C: I will order one for you. Me: Thanks.
Similar conversation about window happened with the same reaction and result.
I cannot imagine what it is like to just get out of bed and just "be". You know. Just get up, shower, get dressed, have breakfast and get out of the house without an agonising thought process with each step.
I go to bed thinking about what I will wear the next day and then when I wake up I rethink it. Not because I want to look good but because what I wear needs to match the mood I am in. If I am agitated I would never wear anything that was too loose or it will annoy me all day. If I put my maroon dress on today it would have pissed me off having that colour distract me. Or the brown with the cream would have made me feel disorganised. I don't own clothes that are noisy at all. Except my raincoat. I hate clothes that squeak, creak or make any noise when I move around. Or clothes that flop or dangle.
I'd like to go to sleep at night just like that. You know, lie down and close my eyes and drift off. Not have the noise of the house, the swish of noise in my ears. I would like to drift of to sleep not thinking about how many bugs there are living in my bed linen. Or on my skin. Or on my eyelashes. Apart from thinking about what I am wearing the next day, I actually am very good at not thinking about negative things when I go to sleep. Well, apart from germs and noises. But when you are a light sleeper it makes sleep troublesome. I thought about using ear plugs but then I would be able to feel the ear plugs and that would just make sleep impossible.
But there is one thing I love very much at the moment. Over the past few weeks I have been using an online accounting package and getting it ready for everyone else to use. The utter delight I have had doing the chart of accounts and cost centres just beggars belief. I get into a complete zone as I get it all to work beautifully. The new templates, the new scripts, getting the logo to sit perfectly on everything just makes my mouth water. When I log into the data base each morning I feel a thrill when I see it open up on the big computer screen.
The whole office just works on oblivious to my bliss.
I mean, it's hard to appreciate the pleasure if you are not into it.
Three evenings a week I join my outdoor exercise group.
Two classes are toning classes and one is a boxing class.
During these classes we often have to pair up. In boxing you always have a partner.
I usually pair up with a girl called Vicki. She is of roughly the same fitness as me and we work very well together.
In boxing one of you will hold the bag whilst the other punches and kicks it and then you swap. There are good bag holders and there are shit bag holders.
Good bag holders (like me and Vicki) hold it in firmly. Nice and straight against the side of the body. When the bag gets kicked you push into the kick to take the force of it. If the person is punching you hold the bag still for them. Others hold the bag like a tea bag dangling above a cup. One day I will punch someone in the stomach if they are not careful.
It does not matter how often they are shown how to hold the bag, they just continue to wiggle it around, hold it loosely and on a strange angle. It is very distracting.
Sometimes I get paired up with a newbie. They hold the bag tightly to their body, especially after I kick it once. Then they really hug it to protect themselves from the back fist or elbow. The force of even a chick kick vibrates through the bag and stings. The newbies punch like little kittens to start with and as the weeks pass they get stronger.
There is one guy in class who looks like Mr Bean only bigger. He sounds like Mr Bean with a Russian accent. He wears navy blue polyester track suit pants that he pulls up to his waist. There is a matching top with it. Just a very uncoordinated person. It does not matter how often he is shown how to do any exercise, he just does it differently every time. It is fascinating and frustrating.
We usually have to start the class with something like 100 punches, run to some cone and back, then 80 punches, run to the cone and back, 60 punches, run to the cone and back and so on.
You have to count the punches of your partner to help them know when to run. There is a real art to counting fast without losing rhythm. You cannot just count 1 to 100 because by the time you say 76 your partner will have done five punches. So you count 1 to 10 over and over. I would go - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 and then 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,20. It makes sense when you are doing it.
It's all fun. Just getting out and about in the fresh air and moving. Better than one hour sitting inside watching television.
He turns fourteen. It seems like a lifetime ago we brought him home from the hospital. Totally clueless on the whole parenthood thing but we appear to have managed well enough just as millions have managed over the centuries.
He is now almost two inches taller than me and I find that very strange as I now have to tilt my head back a bit to meet his eyes. I have no idea how much taller he will get.
We bought him a few things that he asked for along with a few things that he did not which included a few t-shirts, two of which I have to return because they were "too nice". I knew I should have bought the one with the zombie on the front. Or maybe the one with the half naked girl. Anyway, looks like another visit to the department store tomorrow. Booooooooooooring.
In nine months he will be getting a part time job. Over those months we will be getting him used to using public transport and getting about without us driving him. Although, I just know my husband will pick him up and drop him off where ever he ends up working. I mean, he drives him to school each morning which is a ten minute walk away so I can see him being a softie and doing the same when he gets work.
My son could not rely on me to drive him to school since I just won't. Apart from the fact it is unlikely I would be ready to leave the house by the time he needs to get to school, I just think he should walk his arse up the street. He takes ages to get out of bed. Ages to get dressed. Ages to just be ready to go. That is unless my husband has to get out to a job early. Then my son has no problem getting to school very early. I just have to say "Dad's going to work early so you have to walk to school" and he is ready in a flash. Only have to say it once.
My husband and I have regular chats about the fact that our son is perfectly capable of walking to school. K then resolves that from the next week onwards S will have to walk to school. Full of resolve and then S sleeps in again and pfaffs around again. Then K the enabler drives him.
But you know, I am glad one of us is like that. It is a nice balance.
Here are some other nice balances that help my son:
1. I swear, my husband does not 2. I sleep in, my husband does not 3. I am untidy, my husband is not 4. I shout, my husband does not 5. I love watching tv all the time, my husband does not 6. I love my computer, my husband can take it or leave computers 7. I change the bed linen, my husband would never think of it
So my son gets to see that two different people can get on well and things work.
On Friday my son had to dress in the style of Medieval. I made up this peasant/serf outfit which did the job very well.
At 7.30 in the morning he suddenly said that he needed 300 grams of ham to take to school. We figured there must be some sort of medieval banquet planned and that he had been asked to bring ham. So my husband bought it and it went to school with my son.
In the evening I asked how he went and he said it was all good. He then told me that a lot of the ham was eaten which surprised him. When I asked why that would surprise him he told me that everyone had brought things like chips and lollies.
"So, why on earth did you bring ham?" I asked.
"I don't know. I just had to bring something for a party and the only thing that came to mind was ham," he told me.
"Ham? 300 grams of ham? Your friends must have thought that was a bit odd," I said.
"Yeah, they wanted to know why I brought ham and I did not really have an answer," he replied.
So the ham sat in a plastic bag on the table amongst all the cakes, lollies and chips like an outsider. Not sure just how popular it was. But it was a talking point.
My new studio was started last week. I took some photos of the progress.
It's great when someone else is doing it all.
It is very exciting for me. Yesterday we went and chose the light for the room. Initially I had a thought that something funky would be great but I decided to go for the most practical one.
The sides have since been painted black.
You can see the old studio. That will become a bike shed for all our bikes. Which will make room in the garage for other stuff.
Yesterday morning I went to the hairdressers.
Going to the hairdressers is one of my favorite activities. Catch up with my hairdresser who is a great friend, read trashy mags and then leave the place looking better than I did when I arrived.
After the hairdressers I always walk down the street and check out all the shops. I have a few favorites I look into. Have lunch somewhere nice. Stop for a coffee in one of the small coffee shops. Look at the book shop and see what is new. It's a particularly nice day for me.
However, something was different yesterday. Two of the clothes shops that had been there for ever had sadly closed. The book shop I frequent was open for the last day and all but empty of books. The health food cafe I like to have lunch in was completely full so I went into a Jewish bakery and bought some cakes to take home instead and gave the lunch a miss.
It kind of made me sad to see these changes and it took a few hours for my mood to pick up again. I understand change is inevitable but I don't have to like it.
So I went home and ate a huge, sugary and delicious meringue which made me feel marginally better.
I have, over the years, spoken to my son about drug use.
Having a sister who spent ten years of her life smoking dope morning, noon and night gave me a bit of an insight as to why people end up using drugs.
Anyway, I never say that drugs are bad. If he tries them and they make him feel good then he will think I am full of rubbish.
So I say to him that drugs feel great when you take them but there are consequences and I then tell him some of those consequences. For example, I showed him some photos on people who take meth. Or I remind him of how my younger sister lived for years because she had a drug habit to support. There can be long term health problems as well.
It is just not that straightforward anyway.
But as a parent you can bet that the question will one day come up as to whether or not you have used drugs. One day my son asked if I had and I told him about one little dope smoking episode in my life.
It was years ago. Maybe 1981. I had a boyfriend called Andrew who was a bit of a private school prat but a nice sort. One day we caught up with two of his friends and went for a drive into the city. We shared a couple of joints around in the confines of the small car as we made our way in.
By the time we got to the Botanical gardens it would be fair to say that we were all really in a happy place. We walked around for a while before laying on the smooth green grass to rest and look up at the blue sky.
It was in Summer. The late afternoon air was warm and at an arena not far from us George Benson was performing at a concert. His beautiful music drifted through the still air, hung amongst the leafy branches of the trees and then into my head. I closed my eyes to enjoy the feeling. The world was, at that moment, exceptionally beautiful.
I can still recall my heightened senses as though it were yesterday.
Of course, everything has to come to an end and that includes being stoned. Within two hours of that wonderful experience I felt like someone had driven an axe down the centre of my head and left me a giant headache. We went to a Greek restaurant where I ate a garlicky kebab and drank come soft drink.
The next morning I woke up with a bad taste in my mouth thanks to the greasy kebab. The headache was still there along with the memory of that nice afternoon at the gardens.
It's not really an off putting story is it? I mean, I could have said all sorts of dire things. Or lied and said I have never smoked dope in my life. But what is the point of that. He asked me, I told him.
He laughed when he heard the story.
And then I added that the day would have been just a great without smoking a joint in the car. I might not have remembered it quite as clearly maybe? Not sure.
I just say to my son that whatever choices he makes, they are his choices and he has to live with the consequences. My love for him will never lessen no matter what he does. My worry for him would increase. But my love would be as steady and strong no matter what.
I do have to add the warning that having a family with a history of mental health problems may put him at a greater risk of bigger issues if he adds drug use to the formula.
In telling him that story I suppose I just wanted him to know that sometimes parents do things that they realise they don't really want their own children to do.
And that the choices parents make are the ones that they and their children live with in the end.
Something about learning by others mistakes comes to mind.
