First Post for 2015

Its already mid-April and this is my first post for 2015. What can I say? It has been a very busy summer. 

Little Bambi is about to turn 'twee' in about two months. Time flies. As I was walking home from the train station today after work, I keep thinking what an amazing kid she is, my beautiful girl. 

Grumpy had a mild case of food poisoning last night. He thought he was going to die. I asked him this morning if he was still alive, and he replied yes. 

Work has been good. Very busy but good. I applied for a different role within the same team recently. Strange thing is that I hardly told anyone about it. I knew my chances were low, yet I had a glimmer of hope. On Wednesday this week, I was told that I was unsuccessful for the role. And I spent all night and the next day feeling sorry for myself. Having said that, my current boss pulled me aside just as I was about to head home today, and hinted about a possible promotion in July. JULY?! That is like 'twee' months away. Anyways there is nothing concrete there, but enough to cheer me up a little bit.

We had a swarm of visitors from KL travelling here for holidays since March, with Grumpy's family being the most recent one. Just as I thought that was the end of it all and I could recoup my energy levels and bank account balance... my parents informed me that they will arrive next week. 

Hoping to be able to write more frequently for the rest of the year. This is my way of keeping a diary and a collection of thoughts, memories and experiences. 

Lovely weekend all!

Shitburgers

Oh my, I cannot believe I survived this week. It has been extremely busy at work, so busy that I feel like I have just been taking shitburgers, one after another. I have been working late most nights, at home of course, doing work on my laptop. Yesterday was such an interesting day. 

At 6.30am, Grumpy took off with his mate to the airport - and they were travelling to Malaysia for a bucks party! So that means its just myself and Little Bambi at home, to fend for ourselves. 

I dropped her off to creche at 7am. She was the only kid there. I swear I drove back home with a massive pang of guilt! It is too early in the morning, and most kids only start coming in at 8am or 8.30am. 

I rushed to work on the train, grabbed my favourite coffee , made it to my desk by 8am and did my work as usual. At 12.15pm, my ex-boss from my old work organised lunch for 10 of us who used to work together, also in the same bank, but lunch was in a different building. I work in 500 Bourke Street, lunch was at 700 Bourke Street. Walked there, had lunch, said my hellos, and walked back again to 500. At 2.15pm, I packed my laptop, cleared my desk (bloody flexi-desk policy) and ran for my life to my next 2.30pm meeting at 800 Bourke Street. Bloody hell. Weather was warm, OMFG I was sweating like an effing pig! Also, I barely know my way around 800 Bourke building, which made it nearly impossible to make it in time to my meeting. Meeting rooms in this building are, as an example, 'Meeting room 1234', which means Pier 1, Level 2, Room 34. I found myself stopping people to ask "Excuse me, where's Pier 8?????"

2.30pm meeting went great. It still have no idea how I made it there in time. Then the next meeting, also in 800 Bourke, was at 3.30pm. It had some fancy name called 'The Hub - Meeting Room 2345'. This is rocket science, isn't it? Again, I had to ask someone, "Excuse me, where is The Hub, Pier 2?" The 3.30pm meeting was an interesting one, a Board meeting, I arrived 5 minutes early, only to find out I am the second last person to arrive. There were ten people already seated. The last person was of course the Chairman of the Board. Anyways, got it over and done with. TICK!

Next stop, back again in 700 Bourke St, to have a quick cup of coffee with Little-Miss-Whats-For-Lunch. It started to rain. Shitburgers.

The final stop, back to the CBD from Docklands, was at Campari house for our team drinks, which is all paid for by work. After drinks, I took the train (a bit tipsy) and got home at 8pm. 

While I did all of that, in the back of my mind, of course, I was thinking of my Little Bambi. Thank goodness I had Dopey. He was kind enough to offer to pick her up from creche. I made a checklist for him, which meant that he had to bath her, feed her dinner and put her to bed. Dopey had to be in Adelaide for work yesterday, but I twisted his arm, and he changed his Adelaide trip to next week. 

Last night, as I laid in bed, my legs sore and my head mentally exhausted, I was just glad the day was well and truly over! With Little Bambi by my side, I kissed her cheeks and tell myself how blessed I am that she is such a good kid. I do owe my brother big time for helping me out yesterday too. 

10 More Weeks Til Christmas

Little Bambi at 2 years and 4 months

We had a weekend filled with catching up with my friends - from work (actually). 

On Friday, an ex-workmate invited us for a playdate at the park for Little Bambi and her son. I felt bad because while I had work that day, I could only get to the park at 6pm. So it was a pretty late playdate. We finished at the park at 7pm, and rushed home for a shower and dinner. It was still pretty fun.

Saturday we did the usual routine. All three of us headed to Chaddy at 8.20am. I went to the gym for the 8.30am RPM class, while Grumpy and Little Bambi went to McDonalds for breakfast and they did a Coles run together. In the evening, we invited some friends over for dinner, including Little-Miss-Sailing, a new friend I made at work. Little-Miss-Sailing is from the Hong Kong office and I thought it would be nice for her to come over instead of spending her weekends by herself. 

This morning, we drove all the way to Eltham to meet another ex-workmate (from my previous previous work) Little-Miss-Frenchie (she really is French) and her 4 month old baby at the farmer's market. While the market was not great, there was a nice big park which Little Bambi could play in. 

Grumpy and I have not been feeling 110% over the last week because of hayfever and a chest infection. I am getting better though, so lets hope next week will be a lot better! 

10 more weeks til Christmas! 8 more weeks til my mum arrives!

Picnic at the Tan

Little Bambi has been doing imaginary plays a lot lately. She pretends she is in a boat, in a train, in a plane, and most recently she has been playing pretend picnic!

Here is Little Bambi playing picnic in her
bedroom by herself, with all her toys.

And so... Grumpy and I decided to take her out for a REAL picnic, considering it is beautiful weather this weekend. He won a picnic basket from work about a year ago. I bought a picnic rug from last year's Christmas sale. So I am glad we are finally putting our picnic utensils into good use.

I googled 'Best picnic spots in Melbourne', and read up on local parks, places like Mt Dandenong etc. In the end, we decided on the Tan (the only place we were most familiar with, and also because we knew we would not be disappointed).

We packed our picnic basket the night before. And this morning, after my 8.30am RPM class in Chaddy, I stopped by at Aldi - picked up some cheese, crackers, dip and chocolate biscuits (for dessert). 

Here are some pictures from today.

Little Bambi munching on celery sticks with onion dip.

Trust Grumpy to bring the alcohol..

The vintage looking picnic basket Grumpy won from work. 

Cheers!

All three of us, captured in this photo.

Soaking up the sun.

Family portrait at the Tan

It was nice that Dopey and his girlfriend joined us too at our picnic. We laid on the grass, Little Bambi ran around on her bare feet, food was yummy, we played music from the iPad and Spotify, the temperature was still a bit cool by my standards (20 degrees celcius). Overall, the picnic today was absolutely perfect. 

Face Painting

The good news is that Grumpy has finished watching LOST! FINALLY! The bad news is that even though we both started out watching it together, I kind got lost myself with LOST, because it is so effing confusing and so, I have not been giving it my 110% attention and decided to sleep early that night (while he was watching the finale). 

I would like to watch the new season of Downton Abbey! I love Downton!

Last week was quite busy. I caught up with two old workmates. One of them was my old boss, whom I never used to like at the start, but after a while we both kinda just got along really well! I miss her so much! I really do, I love how open and honest we are with each other! My new boss is a guy, and its just not the same. He is nice and all, but we have yet to overcome the awkwardness of a professional working relationship.

Yesterday, at the last minute, I organised lunch at a german restaurant to celebrate Oktoberfest. There was face painting for kids, and so I asked the girl to paint Little Bambi as a cat. This has got to be one of the worst face paintings ever, but oh well, the girl that did it came personally to our table and offered it, which was a nice thing to do. When I said to Little Bambi 'Lets take a selfie', she saw her face and wanted to wipe it off immediately!

Okay, thats it for a Monday night!

XX
Jules

Part-Time Working Mother

When we returned from a four week holiday in Malaysia, I assumed I had used up all my annual leave for the year. Until a few weeks ago, my manager said I still had about 5 days of annual leave which I need to clear up before the bank's year end (which is 30 September). 

Therefore, for the month of September, I took every Friday off. And last week, being the final week in September, I had Thursday and Friday off. It was awesome!!! Now I know what it feels like being a part-time working mother! Working full-time while juggling a two year old can be quite exhausting!

As an added bonus, I squeezed in Volunteer Day today, so I only return to work tomorrow. I chose to volunteer at the Christian Blind Mission, writing Christmas cards for their donors. I love writing Christmas cards! My scheduled time was 10am until 3pm. I dropped Little Bambi off to creche at about 9.30am before I started at CBM. When I was done at 3pm, I stopped by at Coles and the chemist, and then picked her up by 4pm. We got home, ate ice cream and then walked the dog together. Oh yes, and not forgetting the fact that I made it to the gym at 6.05am this morning for a session of RPM Hi-Performance!

Usually Little Bambi is at creche from 7am until 5.30pm - which is such a longgggg day. We get home by 5.45pm and there's hardly any time to do anything apart from taking a shower and getting ready for dinner. 

At dinner today, I told Grumpy that the '10am-3pm' time really suits us, because at least Little Bambi is not at creche for too long a day, and we have more time to do fun things like eat ice cream! 

He looked at me and said "So do you want to do volunteer work everyday????"

Old Episodes of Lost

It has been nearly three months since my last post.

The reason for my lack of post is because Grumpy has decided to watch old episodes of Lost again, and while he roped me in to watching it with him, I have lost access to my Mac Book Pro at night. Each night after Little Bambi falls asleep, we hide in our bedroom on a cold winter's night, two mugs of hot green tea in hand and heaps of chocolate and junk food to share.. while watching a bunch of people run around an island fighting for survival.

Little Bambi has been doing really well. She has been in really good form this time round, compared to last year. She is getting on very well with her friends in childcare, always looking forward to spend the day with them. She is cheeky, as always.

My birthday this year, 32 years old.. Yikes.. it was extremely low key, which I did not mind at all. I told no one at my new work about my birthday. But I did take the day off. 

Work has been good as well. I am so very blessed that I landed myself in a good working environment, with nice and friendly people. The team is quite professional too, although it is mainly male dominated. I am really enjoying my role as well, it is a huge learning curve for me, so lots to take in.. and while I should really be reading up on financial news at night, instead I am watching an old TV show from ten years ago (ie Lost)! However, after going through two redundancies, a dozen restructures and the usual office politics in financial services, I know one can never be too confident or comfortable in a role.

I have been trying to improve my fitness level as well. I currently join my workmates at boot camp during our lunch breaks on Tuesday. And on top of that, I have been taking RPM classes at the gym. I bought my first cycling shorts yesterday, and am thinking of getting proper cycling shoes too. 

I have to run now, but looking forward to blog more in the coming weeks.