Sad day

Tonight at work I found myself yet again 

up the back of the lab stuck with performing analysis I don't particularly like.

Well, it's not so much the task itself I hate but the chemicals I have to handle I guess.

If I'm up there for too many days in a row I get edgy and start to worry if 

there is enough ventilation and if I'm being harmed in any way.

There is also another reason that I hate being up there.

I feel that there is far too much time to think about things.

A lot of the time it's actually over thinking things.

Tonight I found myself with my brother Jason on my mind 

and I was unable to shut it off.

 Though this may sound emotionally retarded,

that's usually how I deal with things.

Shut it down.

Just shutting those thoughts off, a mission to be distracted,

forcing other ideas and thoughts into my head.

Last resort - getting drunk.

Clearly, being at work I couldn't depend on alcohol to get me out of it.

I tried distracting myself with other thoughts and plans.

But I just kept coming back to him.

I've felt very emotional the past few days and I guess today I finally hit a wall.

I feel cheated that I never got to have more time with him.

10 years apart, he was always so much older than me.

When your a little kid, a brother who is that much older than you,

is someone you look up to with awe but you don't really understand.

I never really knew him back then.

He left home at 16 for work in north qld when I was 6.

Sure we saw each other at xmas and other family events, but it wasn't until

about a year before his death that I really found myself talking to him

without feeling like I was still 6 years old. 

I was shocked to find out just how much we had in common as adults.

He had a such a kind heart.

An earlier memory...

Sitting on the front balcony with my brothers and sisters when I was maybe 5,

 receiving encouragement from him on my painting skills

(even though my brush work was clearly sloppy and he was really gifted artistically) 

on Mickey Mouse he had helped me make from a plaster mould.

A later memory...

Reading his facebook status in which he boldly stated that he agreed with same sex marriage  

and that anyone who didn't feel the same should remove themselves from his friends list.
It felt good.

That's how older brothers are meant to make you feel.

I often wonder what memories we might have had if he had not had left so soon.

I'll never know, so I hold on dear to the past ones.

He loved Little Birdy and so do I.

So here is one of my favourites, Brother.

♥

Cluck...

Lately I've been wanting a little person.

Not of the dwarf variety.

The infant kind.

Yeaaaah.

It's both a scary thought and an exciting one.

It's also difficult one.

If I allow myself to drift off and imagine the type of child we would have 

I easily conjure up images something similar to this.

Adorable, curious little creatures like this.
The type the can't do anything wrong.

Um... but what if we get this.

Constant screaming, tantrum throwing, unbearable children.
I really don't want that.

On top of that, no one hopes for an ugly kid.
Right?
Lucky that all parents think their kid is the cutest thing, despite the reality.
(Oohhh karma is gonna get me for that one)

All jokes aside,
I should take a step back.
Let's be realistic here.

 It's not that quick and easy for my partner and I to have a baby.
I do have a basic understanding of biology
and unfortunately try as we might, our ability to conceive together would not be so easy.
We need to look outside the box.
Ha... box.
(All jokes aside, including the type a 12 year old says)
 It's here we will have to enter the unfamiliar world of sperm donors.
 How do we chose someone based on an essay and childhood photographs?
Who is this person?
What kind of temperament do they have?
Are they stupid?
Are they creative?
Could they possibly be lying through their whole essay anyway?

It's a gamble.

Say we find a donor we both like.
The next step would involve a series of terribly unromantic trips to the Fertility Centre.
Insemination.
Just gives me warm tingly feeling all over.

Once that finally works and I'm actually pregnant,
it's all 'smooth sailing' from there.
Same old issues as every other woman with a growing thing inside them.
Morning sickness, gaining weight and mood swings.

Apart from all that there is something else that worries me more.
The utter absence of support from my friends.
Now not all of my chums think that babies should be drowned in a bucket at birth.
I even have a couple of friends who have recently started a family of their own.
However, the majority of those in my friend circle openly voice their opinion
that people stop being fun when they have babies.
That my lady thang will be broken.
Jokes about not wanting to be invited over to see the baby if I have one.
They say they never, ever, ever want children.
Actual disgust in the thought.

You know what?
It really pisses me off.
I understand that may be how they honestly feel but I find it extremely insensitive.
It makes me feel as though I'm almost being blackmailed.
Like if we choose to start a family we might slowly but surely be cut from the circle.
That's not fair.

Why not embrace decisions and choices that friends make?

I feel like I have spent a lot of my life doing things to please other people.
That's not to say I haven't had a lot of fun along the way.
I just want to be able to stop doing things that I don't want to do
without feeling shit about it.
Not feel as if I'm being I'm being boring if I don't.
I'm well aware I may sound like a grandma to some people
but I'm just not interested in going out every weekend
and then spending Sunday in bed suffering a hangover of death.

It's taken a while for me to get my head space into a place where I
feel happy and content.
But as soon as I start falling into that trap of stressing about
what my friends and other people might think and say about me,
I get really down again and feel like I'm back at step one.

Bringing a child into this world is a huge scary thing.
I would love to have the support of all my friends
but you know what?
Even if I don't, I know I still have the support of Candice.
And that's what matters the most to me anyway.

I'm turning 29 in a couple of months so I'm pretty sure
my basket of eggs is gonna be nice and stocked for a few years to come.
We not planning to rush out today and try and get this baby business underway.
For the time being I'm focusing on my career, study and my already
adorable family - Candice, Yoshi & Luna.

But sometime in the nearish future...

My short weekend

Next week I'm on graveyard shift starting on Sunday night.

I usually dread this weekend as I have to spend a

beautiful Sunday sleeping.

 

Tomorrow I get to do it in 34 degree heat.

 

The only decent thing about these weekends is that my body

wakes me up really early on Saturday.

(as the previous week my wake up time is 4.30am everyday)

This means I get a FULL day.

From sunrise to sunset.

So when I woke up this morning at 4.45am without the aid of an alarm,

I knew I had to make the most of the day.

I was feeling a little bit odd and lost.

Candice hadn't come to bed until about 2 hours before I woke up

so I knew she would be having a pretty big sleep in.

My brain was jammed with thoughts.

I hatched a plan.

To the beach!

I can't explain how perfect it was.

Shorts and singlet, 

book,

fruit,

soft music,

plenty of interesting people to watch,

finding sticks that look like wands,

bright warm sun and a perfectly cool breeze.

 

I hung out on the sand for a few hours reading my book,

 occasionally stopping to look around for someone to observe

 and listening to sweet melodies courtesy of The Audreys.

 

 

 Even though I knew it was a long shot I messaged a friend 

who splits her living time between New Farm and the Gold Coast in the hope that

she might be sleeping at the latter.

She wasn't.

But lucky for me she felt like coming down for a catch up.

I now had a beer friend.

Gee life is good.

 

I have had a most satisfactory Saturday.

A simply wonderful and relaxing day.

Just peachy.

 

Here is my day in photos taken on both my phone and SLR camera.

After blowing off the dust here are a few snaps taken on my Nikon.

 

 

And taken on my phone

So that was my day and almost my whole weekend.

I have a few hours in the morning to enjoy

but after that it's off to bed for this little shift worker.

Happy weekend all!

♥

Oh and yes, I totally brought the wand home.

As if I wouldn't.

Same same.

Not really a hip hop fan but the video

and story got me hooked enough to watch it all.

It even made me cry a little.

No child of mine will ever feel unaccepted.

Look what I made

I love books.

I love sleep.

Last week I accidentally bought a bed.

I'm not sure how it happened but I'm pretty sure it was the name of the bed that made the sale.

Library Bed.

Say what now?

Books in your bed?

Before I knew it, I was handing over my bank card.

Done deal.

It gets delivered this week and I can't wait.

So yesterday, try as I might,

I couldn't think of anything I wanted to sew.

With books on the brain I decided to make some bookends.

Now I use the term 'make' quite loosely here.

They were really already made.

I just had to glue the bits together and make them look pretty.

Candice and I can have very different tastes in regards to design sometimes

so I decided to make these bookends in a way to reflect

both of our styles I suppose.

I'm into pretty kitsch, vintage and cute styles

Candice is more into bright, modern and also cute styles.

We have the cute thing in common.

As we both have a big love for music, I used music notes as the background.

On my side of the bookends I went for a sort of wall paper pattern.

For Candice I chose robots.

For this project you will need:

• Kaiser Craft bookend pieces (I found mine at spotlight)
• Pretty paper or fabric (I chose paper as it's easier to cut and glue)
• Acrylic paint (whatever colour matches your paper)
• Craft glue

Fist step is to trace all your pieces onto the back of your chosen paper.

Once you have finished that, paint all the edges.

While the paint is drying, cut out everything you just traced.

Next step is obviously to glue the paper onto the wood

and then glue all the wood pieces together.

I chose buttons for the eyes as my button loving heart took over.

That's it.

 My side

Her side.

This is quite possibly the easiest thing I've ever 'made'.

It's probably a really good project for kids actually.

Plus it encourages reading.

Because books are fucking awesome, kids.

To make you happy...

I tend to listen to a lot of Josh Pyke as he can both calm me

and make me feel giant amounts of happiness.

I tried so hard to just choose just one of his songs

but I love them all so much.

I managed to narrow it down to 3.

First up is

Make You Happy

Now don't tell me that didn't make you happy too.

He is driving a guitar boat.

Seriously, a fucking motorised guitar people!

Next song of his I love is an old one I suppose but a big favourite of mine all the same.

Middle of the Hill

And last but not least...

Memories & Dust

Baby chickens!

So many.

*squeal*

So there you have it.

I know this will get me through my Friday and

I hope it gets you through yours too.

♥

Slack... and not picking it up.

Yes, yes I know.

I'm being lazy again with this whole blog thing.

But you know what?

I'm discovering that I'm really just not that interesting.

How do these regular bloggers keep it up?
Seriously how?!

Oh, and while I'm sort of apologising,

I'm sorry for missing last Friday's happy song.

In my defence I only worked 2 days that week as
Monday was the queen's fake birthday so we all got that off.

(Unless you work in hospitality or retail... in that case, you unfortunate bastard, get out!)

Then I was >insert fake cough< sick for the last 2 days of that week.

Don't judge though.

I rarely take sickies but due to that fact that I had too much
of this 'sick' leave up my sleeve,

I made a decision to fucking take advantage.

Best thing about my job is that I get along with my team,
 including my senior technician.

We're all drunken sailors and get along quite merrily.

Which means I can plan sick days.

Even consecutive sick days.

So 2 down, 19 more to go.

And 10 months to use them before I get given another 12 days.
Not that I have to... my sick leave simply rolls over into the next year.
Which is a big yay!

 However, I can't imagine having 2 sick days a month for the next year...
(Ha, well I can imagine it)
However the guilt would eat me.
But I want to.
But I wont.
But could I?
Nah.
Lazy Shauna Vs work ethic Shauna.
It's always a battle.

But enough of that 'Dear Diary' stuff I tend to find
 myself doing on this blog lately.
Geez insert yet another apology.
Like I said earlier it's soooo damn hard to be interesting.
Mental note: get a fucking hobby.

To ease the pain of missing a song last week
I have here, not a typically 'happy' song I guess
 but certainly a favourite of mine.
The band -The xx.
The song - Islands.
I like the clip but it's distracting.
I prefer to focus on the lyrics...

"I am yours now so now I don't ever have to leave"

So true, so true,

Oh crap tomorrow is that day before Friday.

Happy song come to me NOW!

People can act AND sing?

You know who I think is pretty?

Amanda Seyfried.

You know who I think can act?

Amanda Seyfried..

You know who I think has a sweet voice?

Amanda Seyfried.

I love this cover.

I'm a wimp when it comes to scary films and I haven't yet been

brave enough to see her in Little Red riding hood.

Believe me, I want to.

I kinda feel like I'm a bit of a big bad pervy wolf myself right now.