Escaping!

In 3 weeks time I will be nervously waiting for Monday morning to arrive as I will be getting on a plane to go on a trip to the States. Alone. No kids and no hubby.

Consolation for my hubby is that I am flying our nanny from Perth over for the 10 days I am away (clarification: she is 18 and hot). The rumour mill is already in overdrive over this, and I already know that my parents, hubby's parents and all our friends (especially the guys) will be here often for a stickybeak!! :P

Since I married so very young (child bride springs to mind), I never got the chance to travel like most of my friends did and then when I finally got enough money to do it, I also had my 3 beautiful ferals which meant that I couldn't.

Then one day hubby and I got talking and he suggested that I just go and do it. Book a trip and go. Do all the things I wanted to do.

The only stipulation was that he rather I go somewhere that wasn't as appealing to him. I have wanted to visit LA since I was a kid. As a teenager I studied acting and wanted like ever other wannabe starlet to see Hollywood. And being a shopaholic and total utter shoe lover, I want to shop!! Easy decision to make. Los Angeles, here I come!

I also threw in a few days in Las Vegas which has horrified hubby as he would love to visit there himself (but I sorta did that without really telling him until after I did it! Ooops! :P )

I'm excited and I'm scared. I've never been overseas, so to be doing my first trip alone is a quite daunting but I know I'm going to have a ball, and the idea of spending hours not being interrupted by a child is awe inspiring.

I'm sure I will miss the kids (and the hubby, of course) but I absolutely cannot wait for this break, as it will be my first holiday since I had Sprat over four years ago. And if I had any doubt over this trip at all, it was alleviated tonight when I read these words in a book I bought today, "The Intelligent Traveller How to plan your perfect trip" by Jenny Herbet (quote is actually from Mark Twain)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones that you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

OMG I have it! The Jeebus Phone!!

I have the iphone!!

So it took me a little longer than I had hoped, but nevertheless I am now the proud owner of one!! Yay me :D

Unfortunately for me, I cannot use it yet, as I want to unlock it so that I don’t have to go onto one of Telstra’s specified iphone plans and of course the ‘unlocking department’ at Telstra does not work on Saturdays so I have to wait until Monday morning to unlock it and then put my sim card into it.

But, at least I have one!! And it’s so pretty ...

Please can I have my iPhone now?

So, we moved interstate, moved from the city to the country, and although it is taking time for me to adjust, I can safely say that for the most part I am happy to have made the move. The advantages of moving here far outweigh the disadvantages although these last few days have been hard on me in respect to one thing: the iPhone.

The Jeebus phone.

On launch day, I took a chance at getting one and drove the 1/2 hour up the road to out nearest 'big' town (let me clarify: population roughly 60,000 hardly a thriving metropolis) to queue in the freezing cold for one. I had no luck, which was what I anticipated anyway. I then also had my name down for one (actually two) at Telstra, which they informed me may be a good month before they actually had them in store. I wasn't too fazed by this and had resigned myself to waiting for the pretty little thing until then. Next week, however, I am going down to Melbourne so I thought I would try my luck at one of the stores that actually had the phone for the launch. All good.

Today, however, the Telstra shop nearest to me calls me up, and this enthusiastic young man tells me that they have HEAPS in stock and I should come on up to get one. On my way!!! I exclaimed!

In the car for the 1/2 hour drive I go. Good thing I love driving and good thing I happened to be sans ferals so I was only too happy to be going out for a bit.

Just as I get there, my phone rings again. It's the Telstra dude. "I'm so sorry, but our General Manager has advised us that we aren't allowed to actually sell you the iPhone today."
"WTF??? I just got here!!"
"You're more than welcome to come and look at it though."
Look at it? I KNOW WHAT IT FREAKING LOOKS LIKE OTHERWISE WHY WOULD I BE SO EAGER TO FREAKING GET ONE!!!!!
"When will you be able to sell it?" I asked
"Can't say."

*sigh*

So, today I came this close to being the proud owner of the Jeebus phone, but alas, it wasn't to be. Having worked as a mobile phone salesperson for Telstra in a previous life, my guess is that they will be available tomorrow. In which case I'll just have to get back in the car and drive back up there again to get it.

A mothers instinct

So today something happened to me that I anticipated happening, but that I had thus far managed to avoid. Whilst carrying the newbie (who is now almost 4 months old) upstairs, I slipped on the top step and went down like a ton of bricks. I was carrying her in front of me and I fell forward. Somehow I managed to break her fall with my arms and although I frightened the hell out of her, she escaped unharmed aside from a small scratch on her face from my thumbnail. Somehow I managed to get my hand behind her head to shield it as I fell. It is only now, after having been and done the grocery shopping and carrying really heavy bags that I realise how much I actually hurt myself in the fall. I strained both my wrists and bruised the side of my right hand. I bruised my left elbow and badly knocked up both knees. My neck was also strained and I have some major shoulder pain, yet my little newbie is fine. I have always, always said that I would throw myself in front of a train to protect my children and I proved this today. The amazing part is that it was all pure instinct. It happened in a split second, I didn't have time to think about it, and yet my reflex was to protect my baby no matter what the consequence. I am totally ecstatic that this was the outcome. It proved my theory that I would indeed do whatever it took to protect one of my own :D

Personality

To most people, those I know personally and have grown with in the real world for years and also those I have met in the online world, would regard me as a terribly confident person. I am bolshy and loud, I talk a lot and have a great sense of humour. I poke fun at people and love it when people shit stir me back. But every now and then, my guard slips to reveal a rather shy and insecure person underneath. I’m paranoid at how people will perceive me ALL the time. I want people to find me witty and smart, funny and interesting. Not to mention that I hope people find me okay to look at as well! I spend an awful lot of time and money trying to be this person and yet I feel like I fall short all the time. I’m never quite the person I want to be. In the past, I only had to deal with these feelings in the real world, now my world has flowed over into the virtual as well, leaving me with two very separate lives that I need to manage. I was thinking today that although I have more enjoyment in my life as a result of the wonderful people I have met in ‘real life’ that I met online, I also have so much more insecurity. Will they like the real me? Not just the person who has 5 minutes to compose a sentence before writing it. The person who will speak straight away, often without thinking, and more often than not with a fair bit of wine in me! It’s a popularity game that reminds me of high school. I follow you on twitter, will you follow me back? What about FriendFeed? You may follow me on Twitter but you don’t there? Why not? Am I not interesting enough? And if I’m not, what the hell do I do to make myself more interesting? I have always tried to make a point of coming across as happy, and not whinging, particularly on my blog. But I wanted to write this. I suppose I wanted to let everyone know that behind my confident exterior is a person who has as many feelings to be hurt as the next, and an insecurity complex as much as the next also.
And the worst bit, I'm too scared to pimp myself on Twitter and tell people "New Blog Post", yet I want to write more than anything and to do that I need an audience!! Go figure, huh!

Back to the Gym!

So, we have been in Victoria for almost 2 weeks, and I joined the gym a few days ago to work at the dreaded 'baby belly' that inevitably found its way onto my body after 3 pregnancies (actually it was there after the first, but has got worse with each subsequent stretching!!). I told the lovely lady who signed me up that I was deadly serious and determined to work it off and so as she knows my determination, she spent the whole session pushing and pushing me, yelling at me to keep my belly sucked in and go 'faster, harder, faster!!!' ... which I did. This morning, I am suffering a world of pain, particularly in my obliques, but oh wow, it feels good! It's amazing how great the body feels after exercise! The endorphins rush around and make everything look better and more positive! I also tried to do a detox recently, and whilst I couldn't complete it (it required no eating, and I found this too hard with 3 little kids to not eat: I had zero energy), the 3 days I was on it made a big difference to how I feel and kick started a healthy nutritional pattern that I am also determined to continue. I was pleased that I could slip so easily back into a fitness routine. Going to the gym has always been important to me and I am a big advocate of it. But, oy! My body is telling me it worked out this morning! Ouch!!

Bit of blah

I have been trying to write a post about my big move, but it was such a shit day (mostly because of Qantas and Australian Air Express) that everything I write sounds like one big whinge. Now, I hate to whinge on this blog, so it's proving to be a little difficult to write. Having said that though, this blog is also very much a journal for me and I want to record the events of the day, so I hope to finish it tomorrow and post it for you all (and me).

In other news in my life, I am starting a detox tomorrow, so I will keep you updated with how that goes for me and what my moods too :D