I'm tired

I would have thought that after an almost 3 hour sleep this morning, I'd not be feeling so tired. But in fact, I almost fell asleep again this evening while Mr E. cooked dinner. And this has me a little worried. I'm taking a lot of medications at the moment to help with the head. Are they what's making me so tired, is it the having the headache / migraine or is it something else?

I hate being this tired but most of all I hate my intolerance of the little things. I've felt this way before. Like I want to go to bed, pull the covers over my head and wake up in a month or maybe even next year.

Why am I feeling this way? I've just had a great, albeit, tiring holiday with the family. I have pretty good kids, a decent, flexible job and a husband who cooks dinner when I'm really tired. Oh, he loves me, too. Can't beat that, really.

Why do I feel that the world is going to cave in? Is it the fact that despite taking the 24 hour med, the 12 hour med and panadeine forte that my head is still aching? Is it that school holidays are about to start and I will have to juggle work with the family's needs? Is it that the events previously labelled 'unlikely to be psychosis' have occurred again and seem to stronger than before?

Maybe it one or more of those things. Maybe it's just that I'm a glass half empty kind of girl. Whatever it is, I hope it goes away soon. After all, my life is pretty good most of the time.

Hello, people

We are back from our adventure in the Land of the Long White Cloud. It was a very busy time but we are all alive and well (tired though - I'm still tired a week later) so I think we can count our first ever overseas family holiday a success.
All up we spent 5 nights in Auckland and 4 in Taupo. We probably over scheduled ourselves, especially as Boy Child had 2 school assignments he was supposed to complete while we were away.

Here is a brief a wrap up of the things we did:

Attended 2 of the Rugby World Cup 2011 Matches - Australia vs Italy (Australia won) and Australia vs Ireland (Ireland won),

• Went up Sky Tower in Auckland,
• Drove from Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula - had lunch in a Pub in Thames,
• Went Zorbing -Girl Child and I went twice in the water one and Boy Child went in the Zorb where you are strapped in and go upside down,
• Visited Hobbiton (we had to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement so we can't show our photos until after The Hobbit movie is released,
• Saw some geothermal stuff - Craters of the Moon and Silica Terraces,
• Attended a Cultural show and Hangi,
• Went to the Waitomo Gloworm and Ruakuri Caves
• Went out on Lake Taupo and saw the rock carvings you can only see from the water,
• Drove to Napier and did an Art Deco tour.

Rock Carving on Lake Taupo

Sky Tower

Girl Child and I Zorbing

I was surprised about the number of things that were different. First of all, how hilly and green everything was. It was stunning. Of course, it rained most days we were there so that explained the greenness. The hilliness meant that it seemed to take quite a while to drive fairly short distances. We did a fair amount of driving so it was quite noticeable. The truck drivers were very polite and some pulled off the road so other traffic could go past.

There were lots of gluten free options in the Countdown (Woolworth's equivalent) supermarket I went in to. There were 3 different brands of GF bread and 3 different GF cakes available. There were banana's for $2 or $3 a kilo. I wondered why they were so cheaper as bananas here have generally been over $9 and up to $13 per kilo since Cyclone Yasi earlier this year. The reason bananas are so much cheaper in New Zealand is because they come from South America. I think the ones we bought were from Ecquador.
If you ask for Lemonade in a shop or fast food place you are offered L&P which is a very popular New Zealand drink Lemon & Paeroa. We tried it and it has an aftertaste which wasn't that appealing, to me anyway.

Burger King sells mini doughnuts. In fact you could also buy mini doughnuts at the rugby games.

Boy Child was very impressed that some of the pedestrian crossing traffic lights had a moving green man who apparently looked like he was shuffling. So every time we crossed the road at those particular traffic signals he would sing "Every day, I'm shuffling." I still believe my version of "Everybody's shuffling" fits much better for the traffic lights but apparently I'm wrong.

Things that I wouldn't do if I travelled overseas again. Book early morning flights. We had to get up at 530am to catch our flight home. Because of the 2 hour time difference by the time we arrived home we had been awake for 12 hours and it was only mid afternoon here.

Get a Travelex Visa Debit Card. We were told there were no fees except when withdrawing money at an ATM or if there was money left on it that we wanted back in Australian dollars. We were fine with those. Not impressed with the exchange rate being about $0.11 less that the rate shown at the time. When we were converting most of our spending money, to me it was a significant amount. Oh well, it was a learning experience.

Expect children to complete school work. Despite us leavign time for his assignments, it was really silly to think that Boy Child would be able to do them while on holidays. So if there is a next time, he does them before we go or when we get back. It was too stressful for him and us to try to get them done while we were away.

It was lovely to be away but it is certainly nice to be home.

So our holiday is getting close

And I have started to freak out. Today I realized that in a few days we are going overseas as a family. Not far really, just over the ditch. My brain is spinning out with all the things I need to do.

So far today I have:

• Had coffee with my friend W (she is struggling a little at the moment),


• Printed out our plane tickets, car bookings and our hotel booking confirmations,


• Ensured the car insurance covers our house sitter


• Researched data plans for us while we are away,


• Did some work and spent an hour reading at school


• Washed most of the clothes we need to take,


• I have gotten all the medications we need (believe me it's a lot!),


• And cleaned some of the house (after all the house sitter doesn't need to put up with our mess),

Things that I still need to do (and most of these need to be done tomorrow):

• Print the notes for our house sitter,
• Do some more washing,
• Pack,
• Take Serious Dog for a vet check up as he had dental surgery last week,
• Buy dog food (they need a particular one which was out of stock until late today),
• Pick Boy Child up from school early for an appointment,
• Collect Girl Child from school and take her to collect Boy child from his appointment,
• Take both to Girl Child's activity,
• Ring Mr E's sister as she had minor surgery,
• Finish cleaning the house,
• Get food for the car trip,
• Work out what time we need to pick up the kids from their schools on Thursday,
• Arrange to get the car to the house sitter before or as we are leaving on Thursday,
• Ensure that Boy Child does the some of the two assignments that he will have to do while we are on holidays,
• Clean the rest of the house,
• Post a birthday card to my niece,
• Finalise some work stuff,
• And...

I'm sure there is more I just can't remember right now. I only have approximately 32 hours left to do it which is probably why I started freaking out.

So I thought I would take this opportunity to say bye to you, my bloggy people. I may get a chance to read some blogs while we are away but I'm hoping that i will be having too much fun and hopefully relaxing too much to do that. I better go and get cracking on my to do list. Or maybe just go to bed. Decisions, decisions.

Maybe if I go to bed now, I'll be calmer tomorrow. Or maybe not. At this point I'm actually wondering if the holiday is actually worth the stress. Admittedly it's probably mostly streess of my own making and mostly in my own head. I hope it is! When we get back I will hopefully be nice a relaxed. After all we have been planning this holiday for at least two years. It has to be worth the hype. Does getting prepared for a holiday do your head in before hand? Are major holidays worth it? I really hope so!

I'm mean...

In our house Mr E. sometimes refers to me as the 'Queen of No'. I seem to have veto power on a lot of things, which is good for the finances but not so good for the 'I Want' people in my house. When the rug rats ask why I have said no, I often reply because I'm mean. Which while not exactly true is an answer that I am kind of okay with. And its not just monetary things. Recently I told Girl Child that she couldn't play with her DS or use her recently acquired birthday IPod until she found her glasses. Today I even discussed an issue with Mr E. with that's because I'm mean.

But I was thinking about it today. I'm no longer sure that I'm okay with being the mean one. I guess it's easier to say that than to explain the multitude of reasons that whoever it is can't get whatever the item that is most coveted at the particular moment. I have to admit that Girl Child is probably the worse (do they have more fad stuff aimed at girls?) but I think part of it is because at just 8 she hasn't consciously made the link between stuff and it's cost.

I do think that people need to learn the value of things. I don't want my children to think that the consumer culture is the be all and end all. I don't believe the line "he who dies with the most toys wins". But perhaps I should also lighten up a little on the times I say No. Also I think I should stop saying the reason for the No is because I'm mean. Because I'm probably not being mean. They may think I am being mean but I think I'm just trying to stunt the growth of consumerists and hopefully teach them the value of things.

What's your stand on this? Are you the No person at your place? Do you explain the reasons behind your No?

I'm not just talking big ticket items, I think my battle against creating a consumerist started back with those rides in the shopping centres.