Life and work

My 'real' job, the one that pays a consistent income, is midwifery.  I work a shift or two per week at the local rural hospital in the maternity ward and then sometimes I work as a rural locum, covering the community midwives.  That's what I'm doing at the moment.  And boy, can it kick my butt.

I'm in a very privileged position to not have to work much usually.  My husband often has to go away at short notice, or work long hours for his business, so we need me to be available to look after the kids.  I know not everyone has that luxury and must organise childcare as well as their working lives. I know I'm privileged, but I really know it when I work locum.

I've been involved in three helicopter transfers of sick babies in the last couple of weeks.  Today I need to drive for an hour to visit a bunch of women who live even more rurally than I do.  My children got pulled out of bed at 5.30 am the other day because my husband had to start work early and I was at the hospital with a woman.  It sucks.  But it's exciting and fulfilling and important work too.

I'm trying to remember that.  And I'm trying to catch glimpses of the good life in between the sucky bits.

Need Help! Paperwork Crisis!

My house used to be a constant mess. Ok, it still is a constant mess, but it’s a tidiable (is that a word?) mess with an organised undercurrent. Having kids was probably the making of me in that department. I got so bogged and frustrated and upset that I went looking for help. I found FLYlady and did a lot of journaling and soul-searching about the role of a stay-at-home Mum (not all cupcakes and day-time television). I began to go to bed with a cleared kitchen, make my bed straight after getting up, clean something in the bathroom while waiting for the shower to warm, empty the dishwasher whilst the jug was boiling for my cup-of-tea and use a calendar….just those little things that some people know instinctively how to do to stay on top of life and some people (me!) need to learn.

In the spirit of full disclosure - here are my fugly bits.  Piles of paper everywhere!  And  there are other piles hiding in other spots around the house!

But I haven’t ever really got on top of my paperwork. Yuck. I hate it. But crunch time has come. Why? Because, for the life of me, I can’t find the kids birth certificates and I need them. That’s not good. I could order new ones (at $25 a pop) but that’s not really solving the problem, is it?

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that being organised with paperwork can save you time, help you be frugal, and keep on top of life in general.

I’m thinking of making goals – they seem to work for me. Do I dare ration my quilting time? For example: no quilting until I've done 15 minutes filing? Argh! It would probably work, but I think I have deeper issues, which are hijacking my attempts to stay on-top of paperwork. I don’t think I have a proper filing system sorted. Bits go here and bits go there and I have a big pile of ‘miscellaneous’! I don’t know how to sort stuff and how to store it.

So, tell me, how do you do it? What categories do you file stuff under? What techniques have worked for you (or not!)? Please! Anything you think will help me out. We’ve upgraded our computer after eeking out our current one for eight + years and I’ve decided I’m not allowed to open the box until my desk is clear!

Back again.

Little quilt for the hospital I finished with all my internet-free time.

Thanks everyone for your supportive comments in the trialling broad-band-free time that I've been through ;)

I rang the 'really-cheap-but-lacking-in-customer-service' internet provider this morning and they said,"Your broadband has been active for almost two weeks, did you not receive a phone call to help you access it?" Well, no, actually I didn't. Perhaps that's why I'm ringing you?

Actually I wasn't quite so sarcastic, but I sure felt like being witchy. Anyway, water under the bridge, I have internet again.

I knew I liked the web, but it took this enforced break to realise how much I actually USE the net (as opposed to just passing time on it). There were recipes I couldn't look up, gardening sites I couldn't access for advice, people I couldn't keep in touch with and vice versa, phone numbers I couldn't find, questions my son asked me that I couldn't answer, and I felt quite isolated as I couldn't access blogs of like-minded people and people who I feel I'm learning a lot from at the moment.

It made me a little concerned. What if the world does all turn pear shaped and we all suddenly have to be a lot more self-sufficient? What if, for whatever reason, I lose the internet for good? There is so much knowledge to be had on the web, it amazes me. I don't really buy 'knowledge' type books anymore as I feel that I can find anything I need on-line. But if it all went bust, where would that knowledge be?

My recent Op shop finds: a jersey that felted fantastically and a book of soft toy patterns

In conclusion, I've started thinking about a few things. Like wondering if I should do some formal sort of learning around gardening and sustainability, like these workshops here. I've also decided to do some thinking about goals - what do I want to achieve, where do I want to be in 2, 5 ,10 years time, and what do I need to get there? (Very deep and meaningful, I know).

And I'm going to start being a little more organised with my interests. This means getting some folders with labels on the outside and writing or printing out the tidbits I find and keeping them in hard copy. I will endeavour to write recipes down when I find them instead of trying to find them again later, or worse, forgetting about them completely. I'm going to start using the local library's online service to request books I want instead of writing them down and then losing my list!

Simple lemon cake - I recipe I DID write down.

And last, but not least, I'm going to try and meet more local people, interested in the things I'm interested in, by making the effort to get along to local meetings. For example, I'm a member of Forest and Bird, yet I have NEVER been to a local meeting, not once!

A Day of Flukes and Lessons

Today was a day of flukes and lessons, hopefully not harsh lessons, but we won't know probably until tomorrow.

Fluke One: The puppy found some rat bait. We don't exactly know how but we had some out at the land a while ago and we didn't use it all. We had it in an unmarked bag, on top of an old chiller. But when the builders cleared everything out of the shed, we think they just chucked it on the rubbish pile, not looking in the bag first.

Fluke Two: I saw the puppy eating the poison. I had gone outside to take Madam-almost-two to the dunny and there was Emma, the puppy, munching into her second fist-sized bag of bait. Of course I stopped her from eating the rest, but to have caught her eating it at all was lucky.

Fluke Three: My Father-in-Law was out there with us. Not a usual thing, but he was helping us paint.

Fluke Four: He had driven his own truck there, not caught a ride with my DH.

F.I.L is an ex-possumer and he still does trapping and poisoning as a bit of a sideline. He was the one who gave us the bait in the first place. He knew exactly what to do and he carries the remedy in his truck all the time. Washing soda crystals forced down Emma's throat made her heave up the bright green bait in about two seconds flat.

So now we watch and wait. The remedy is Vitamin K and to be certain, I'll get some for her tomorrow.

Lessons learnt:

1. Never use poison if you can avoid it. If you don't have it, then you never have these problems. I always try to be organic as possible and this just gives me another reason for doing so.


2. If you do have poisons, always keep them in a clearly labelled container and preferably in a locked cabinet. What we did was just asking for trouble and I should probably be very thankful we weren't shoving washing soda down one of the kid's throats.


3. Know the remedy or treatment for all poisons you use or have in the house - and yes, even dishwasher powder can have devestating effects.