Archives for June 2011

No entry. No floor.

June 30, 2011 by Jen

Thursday, 23 June 2011, Day 212/365.

Pretty straightforward the sign above don’t you think? I couldn’t resist taking a photo of it.

An old department store in the shopping area of Adelaide is being redone and this door is part of it. It appears as though they’ve kept the original part of the building and have knocked down the add-ons to rebuild.

It will be good when it’s done as this shop was pretty derelict. It had big fans for cooling, not proper air conditioning – or any at all.

In the meantime it’s a huge building site with all the accompanying noise that entails.

Seedy

June 29, 2011 by Jen

Wednesday, 22 June 2011, Day 211/365.

A new business opened up around the corner from my house about a month ago and it has these balloons out the front so that people will notice it I guess. That’s if the big sign painted across the window doesn’t also attract their attention.

The first I knew of this business was when I walked my son to school one day – not far from this business – and a local news channel stuck a camera in my face and the interviewer asked me what I thought of the bikini massage parlour that had opened up down the road.

I hadn’t heard of the new business but I know about the brothel that’s down the road. This is a separate business to that as I found out.

Of course many of the school parents are up in arms about its proximity to the school and rightly so.

It’s all quite seedy. It looks seedy. The guy who runs it is apparently very shady but I guess guys don’t mind paying money to get their rocks off so seediness probably isn’t on their radar.

Mum heard about it on the news (fortunately I didn’t make it because I didn’t quite say what they were after) and she jokingly suggested I get a job there. This was before I found more gainful employment.

Honestly, apart from the balloons out the front of this place going flat I haven’t noticed it at all. I haven’t seen streams of men going in and out or roaming around my place after having their ‘massage’. Hopefully it stays that way.

This little piggy

June 28, 2011 by Jen

Tuesday, 21 June 2011, Day 210/365.

In Rundle Mall in Adelaide this is a sculpture.

I love it and I keep meaning to take a photo of it but had never got around to it before.

That’d be right

June 27, 2011 by Jen

Monday, 20 June 2011, Day 209/365.

I bought a big bottle of cough medicine because the dry annoying cough was plaguing me.

And guess what? The cough pretty much went away of its own accord and I’ve hardly touched the cough medicine. Typical right?

Good morning sunshine

June 27, 2011 by Jen

Sunday, 19 June 2011, Day 208/365.

It was downhill from here on in upon waking up after a big night. That is all.

Happy birthday to my ten year old

June 26, 2011 by Jen

This time ten years ago I gave birth to a healthy 9lb 6oz baby boy.

I can’t believe ten years have passed already. He’s nearly as tall as me now and it won’t be long before he is taller than me, and I’m not a shorty.

The labour of having him was fairly lengthy. It took 24 hours all up and I made the mistake of phoning a couple of people before I went off to the hospital at around 8pm the night before thinking I’d have him by midnight. HAH!

I wanted to have him on the 25th because that was my nana’s birthday and him having the same birthday would have been great. It wasn’t to be however.

I eventually pushed him out – and it nearly didn’t happen that way and I wonder how things might have panned out if I wasn’t so determined not to have a caesarean.

We stayed for three nights in the hospital and came home on the Friday morning. I didn’t even know how to put disposable nappies on a baby. I soon learned of course, and I even learned how to use cloth nappies. I always liked the clean cloth nappies on the line and I learned that dogs like eating little accidents!

When he was three months old I got up to feed him and watched as planes flew into the World Trade Centre buildings. That was nearly ten years ago.

He was as good as gold that day I brought him home, sleeping – well sleeping like a baby when all the visitors were there.

That night was a completely different story. I don’t think got to sleep until about 5am and when the nurse rang me at 9am I asked if I could send him back and I wasn’t really joking.

I tell JJ the story of how he cried that first night at home and give him a demonstration. He thinks it’s funny. He won’t when it’s his turn is all I can say.

I’ve been a sole parent for the whole of his life and it’s not always been easy with no emotional or financial support for him but we’re getting through it.

I think he was brought to me to help teach me patience and learn about unconditional love. He’s certainly tested my patience during these ten years but he’s made me laugh too.

Here’s a few photos.

Here’s a video of him which demonstrates how charming and how silly he can be.

Happy birthday to my boy and as this post goes to air let’s hope we’ve all survived the sleepover/party he had last night.

I love you JJ xxxxoooo

While the kid’s away……

June 25, 2011 by Jen

Saturday, 18 June 2011, Day 207/365.

Last weekend JJ had a scout camp. I dropped him off on the Friday night so I was keen to make the most of it if I could.

An opportunity arose to catch up with some friends so The Surfer got his kids babysat and off we went. My cold had been lingering and the thought had crossed my mind that I should stay home and take it easy but I quickly brushed that aside.

It was a casual evening catching up with a few friends and I had a great time.

I wish we’d known they were firing up the wood pizza oven as we’d also had pizzas before we dropped the kids off but I did eat a little bit of the wood oven pizza once we got there. There was certainly plenty to go around.

I think I drank a little bit too much but whatever I did got rid of the remains of my cold so I was pretty happy with that.

The only downside of a big night is a very slow day the next day.