Happy New Year 2012

I could have posted a Happy New Year greeting yesterday but had to do the things that suddenly needed doing on New Years day.

Happy New Year to everyone.

Do you have resolution?  I don't.  It's a bit of a wank that whole resolution thing.  I have had resolutions but they are so stupid  that it is pointless.  Things like "be more organised" or "get to bed early" or "put less in handbag" and other mindless stuff.

It's hot here.  Really hot and windy.  Yesterday was hot as well.  So it does bring forth that question as to why I get the impulse to do something inconvenient outside.

I woke up yesterday morning and thought that the mezzanine floor in the garage needed to be sorted.  It has boxes of stuff stored up there and has been getting a bit crowded.  When you live in a small house (by today's comparisons) and are lacking storage it is really important to have regular culls.   Or regular double checks that what mattered three or more years ago still matters.

When I get such a notion my husband just goes with it.  Doesn't matter if it is 36 celcius outside and thus even hotter inside the garage.  It has to be done.  So down came the plastic containers of stuff for me to go through.  One at a time, lids off and contents on show.  It was a bit of a hard job.  I find the whole decision making process hard at the bets of times but on a stinking hot day with sweat dripping underneath my clothes it is even more challenging.

I kept pretty much all of the things I had previously stored of my son's items.  But a lot of things of my own were moved on.  Baskets.  I had a few of them.  I must of gone through the basket phase years ago.  They went out onto the front nature strip and were picked up by passers by.  Then I had a box of these candle holders.  They were actually in the studio.  When I bought them (ten of them) I had misread the size and instead of being little things they were HUGE.  Great big glass things that you needed great big candles to sit in the middle of.  Not cutesy little tea light candle holders.  They were hideous.  No wonder they were so cheap.  So out on the nature strip they went and were also taken away.

I found a lot of things that my mother had given me.  I use the term "given" very lightly because I now realise the process of handing over something from mother to daughter can also be "dumping ones crap over to someone else".  I recall her saying something to me about getting to a certain age and just getting sick of having so much crap in the house.  I get what she meant and I also know she won't mind that I got rid of the doily's and material paraphernalia I have had for the past 15 years and not looked at ever.  And she won't mind that today I will put the loads of coloured cellophane I somehow ended up with.  Or the craft magazines.  Or the cut outs for making things.

One thing I had was a very old and big alarm clock that had been my dad's.  It was not his as such in that it held no sentimental value to him.  It was something he had picked up over the years and it had hung around the house when I was little.  Somehow I ended up with it.  Many years ago it fell of the mantlepiece and was dented and the glass broke.  I had the glass replaced and then a leg fell off.  After that I packed it away and when I unpacked it yesterday and the hands had fallen off.  I tossed it over the the rubbish pile and the glass broke.  I might retrieve it from the rubbish and use its internals for a collage.

The job of sorting seemed to take forever and I did contemplate giving up at one point.  You know that half way mark where everything is just all over the place and it looks like it is not going to come together. But I persevered and it was all finished after a few hours (food and drink breaks extra time).  We managed to empty three or four containers of stuff.  K tucked all the "must keep" into a corner so that we knew it would not have to be moved any time soon.

Then I went into my bedroom and finished off the task I had started the day before.  Sorting clothes, tidying drawers, sifting through receipts and making the room feel nice and fresh for 2012.

Even though the day was extremely hot I made myself go for a walk in the evening.  It had been a couple of days since I had done any exercise and I feel very agitated and moody when I leave it just that long.  It just feels so much better when I exercise.  This morning I was at exercise class with the rest of the group doing weights in the hot morning sunshine.  It was hard work.  But only for the hour.  Once home and showered I was fine.  I had to drop the size of my hand weights most begrudgingly due to a chronic problem with my shoulders and neck.  Months and months ago I did a vague injury and it has plagued me since.  Over the past few weeks it had escalated to taking anti inflammatory medication and pain killers.  I think this week I shall have to see someone about it.  I had trouble using the hair dryer this morning and that calls for immediate attention.  I can put up with a lot but if I cannot dry my hair then I need to get things fixed.

It's so peaceful outside.  Not far from us is a house that has a swimming pool in the back yard.  I can hear the kids jumping in and out of the pool and laughing.  It's such a nice sound on a sunny day.  It would be fabulous down the beach on a day like today.  I would go down but K and S just loathe being outside on a hot day.  My son with his luminescent white skin hates being sweaty and K is the same.  They like the cool interior of the house.  And cool it is right now.  We have two types of cooling in the house.  The evaporative cooling that is great on very dry and hot days, and recently I had an air conditioner put in the back room which is big enough to cool the rear of the house which gets a bit hot after a few days of scorching summer days.

The studio has an air conditioner too.  It takes a few minutes to cool the room down to a delicious temperature.  I could not sit in here other wise.  The afternoon sun belts down on the studio and despite being heavily insulated it gets very hot.

So even though we are all a little housebound with this weather, at least it is cool.

I just realised that I have crapped on about the weather for a while.  

Tomorrow I am going to go to work and do just a few hours to get back into the swing of things slowly.  I don't have to go back until next week but to tell you the truth I don't like being at home too much or for too long.  I like a nice break from work,  time to potter at home, an easing back into work, a bit more pottering at home and then straight into work and then it's back to the busy, busy thing.  I get a bit moronic with too much time on my hands.  My head likes to be stuffed to the brim most of the time.  Too much "me" time makes me shitty.  Not enough makes me shitty.  It's a balance.

So that is my day.

I am sure I have more to write but there are two things making it difficult.

One is that I have not got a decent chair to sit at while I am working on the computer in the studio.  The bench was raised for me to stand at when I am working (or sit at on a stool).  Then I brought in a table to sit at with the computer.  However, I have not a decent chair to sit on and have been perching on a horrid stool which is too low.  This actually aggravates my shoulders while typing.

And that leads me to the second problem.  My aching shoulders and neck are now hurting too much to type and my arse is numb from sitting on the stupid small stool.

In fact, that is a really good reason to go to the SHOPS and get a chair to sit on.

Oh, goody goody.

Ciao
LC