the fifo wife

How was the weekend lovelies? Ours was good typical of an on swing weekend. Saturday was grumble grumble Sunday was so I am told the best day ever and I have to admit I did do okay for ourselves. I caught up with a friend for coffee heard the most amazing news regarding their health, took the boys to spend their $5.00 at Big W, an impromptu visit to the skate park finished off with a $1.00 frozen coke at Maccas, then without knowing made the best dinner ever?.

Win win without even trying really.

Yet this morning after a night of nursing a sick baby {they will always be our babies when unwell} I am tired and so as a result am in that phase of missing my husband and best friend so here are a few things running through my head because its all about distraction in the end.

1. Mum do you mind taking care of me when I am sick? No baby I don’t I said. Not even when I vomit on your sheets? No even when you vomit on my sheets…sigh..grumble grumble.

2. The Block? Omg how terrible were the results? I don’t understand how come the boys apartment went and yet the others didn’t? Anyone know?

3. Its week two of swing.. you can tell when I spoke with husband…you can tell by the way Murphy is hanging around.

4. Head down bum up is the only way to get through week two and week three..actually its the only way to get through any working week.

5. Famous women on ageing here.

6. I can’t stop thinking about Brittany. When I read about her last week I cried when I saw the interview I sobbed here.

7. I commented about her husband last week now I’m commenting on her I like her bump and all here.

8. 15 of the most romantic places to kiss here but I can tell you the ‘romance’ of being kissed whilst walking in the rain will always beat these hands down.

9. Life changing hair hacks? Hmmm have a go at number 4 not life changing but you know here.

10. Ellen and I could not be friends my husband her however would be thick as thieves. Children. here.

Where was the most romantic place you have been kissed?

xx Deb

{image with thanks to here}

I’m having a wee mid life Chris. Well it’s not wee I think it’s ever since I realised I was grown up had kids a mortgage a husband and purchased health insurance so if we get technical it’s been going on for a while. And as I approach 40 which is just three years away I’m constantly thinking I have too much stuff both physical and mental, it’s suffocating me its weighing me down. There is just literal shite everywhere and I want to get rid of it before it’s too late and I’m not only carrying all that shite but my breast and jowls around in a Best and Less bag too.

{And it should be mentioned I don’t actually think of it as casually as oh it’s just three years and away it’s with hyperventilation. It’s with maddening thought I am approaching middle age it’s with a calm sense of neurosis that only I can conjure that I am half way through this gig called life and it’s just a few short years before I will be carrying both my breasts and jowls in a bag with me}

However the catch is I am married and I do have three children and I do see the battle unfolding with the husband whose favourite outing is a trip to the dump {sigh} and who never ever stops thinking more mental and physical ‘stuff’ to think about – we are doomed before even starting on this ‘journey’ {yes dripping with sarcasm I hate the word journey- a journey is sunny days, pina colads and laughter there is no pina colads and laughter when you’re driving home from the dump with yet another big screen TV to sit idly in your lounge room whilst waiting to be collected by the other step toe and son who lives four hours away and only visits several times a year working out how to get rid of it with out compromising realtionships}

However this isn’t about him I can’t control him and nor do I want to I love him to bits and his thinking is what distracts him long enough for me to recharge my batteries so I can keep up with him so typically as we all know what I can control is me and my shite so I am starting a series on just that..Simplifying. You can call it decluttering, minimizing whatever the fashion word for it is currently… but it will be a series on getting my life back on track, finding my Zen spot, my happy place, the back of my wardrobe, seeing our bank balance and go oh yeah that’s noice, looking in the mirror and saying hey you fine thing and being able to walk through my studio without a shovel.

Understand? Yeah I know I have made these threats before husband tells me all the time but that was before. This time I mean it seriously mean it because this time, this time I have sleep on my side. I have independent children who only require me to wipe their orifices when they are sick and they let me go to the toilet on my own so officially I am liberated and ladies and gents there is light at the end of that great big funnel; well until the teen age years begin I am giddy with freedom I am not naive. I have made it through the preliminary stages of parenthood. I can offically focus a little more on me. Me that sounds so selfish and naughty when you say it like that but say it again with a deep growl meeeee.

So that’s it that’s my promise to myself the reward of less is more so here is what I want to get a grip on this is part of my plan.

1. My love life well this is currently under construction as you know from here and here which is why all this came about.
2. Getting rid of ‘stuff’ don’t worry husband your stuff is safe. My stuff I want to walk into a room and not be frazzled by chaos.
3. My head it needs some serious work done on in there that’s going to be a long process; although I think you know that already.
4. My social life I kind of dont have one and the one I do have is not really healthy for head.
5. My digital life I have emails, subscripitions 24/7.
6. My health no brainer.
7. Mine, his and our finances.
8. My work life ie this blog, the shop and my other one.
9. My family life I’m not sure what I can do more but let’s see.
10. to be advised….

So we shall see stay posted I will come back every now and then with an update {of course} and let you know how I’m going with it all. I do promise it wont be Oprah there is only one Oprah but me and all the honesty I can give you. I have to do it and so it’s down on paper its a plan to the bigger picture and I have sent it off to the universe. And If I don’t do it I will end up looking like I have egg on my face ahh additional pressure of course why not? I work better under pressure and expectation? But the only expectation now is mine the only one that should matter.

Have you ‘simplified’ recently was it worth the effort? Did it live up to your expectations?

XxDeb

So I announced last month I was going to take on a lover  and I told my husband I was going to have an affair {with him} and I’m not sure he quiet knew what I meant but he ‘prepared’ himself all the same. And by prepared himself I mean he got physically finer than what he was because obviously thats one does when hearing your wife is taking a lover. And so when he picked me up from the airport that Sunday afternoon I literally went weak at the sight of him. Skipping around the back of our red pickup truck to kiss me I looked around at who else might be spying at what I do claim as mine. Looking better than when he was 23 bare foot in his board shorts, nicely fitted t-shirt, bare feet and cap he was a sight to behold a great start if I do say so myself.

Ahem I regress the affair ahem so without going into torrid details that will leave me unable to walk the street of my small town…

Ordinarily we would have some loving every day and it was always good but like I said here it was routine and sex and routine shouldn’t mix bit like me and smith’s chips when husband is on swing yet when you have an affair you never know when or will “it” happen. There is instead anticipation. So in remembering our first few years together there was no scheduling and so no expectation…the cue sign of standing in a towel after the kids had gone to school went out the window and in came play, words, laughter and teasing and it all became part fun.  So the ‘”it” was when the mood strike and for those interested there was actually was less of ‘it’ funnily enough but here is the thing…it was longer {if possible wink win nudge nudge} and it was soooooooo good. Really really good I can’t emphasise that enough and the best part it was fun. It wasn’t routine, it was funny, it was hurried and needed, it was it was drawn out and passionate and it was good. It left you wanting more.

You know the sort of loving? The type before you got tired? Before having to satisfy one more person other than yourself was the objective. Before it became routine, a ritual and comfort that doing it meant your relationship was okay.

And the surprising spin off apart from the fact there was ‘less’ was that the best part of having an ‘affair’ and taking a lover, changing it mixing it up our relationship dynamic has or started to change. We started becoming much like the selves we were before becoming parents before we started having to listen for feet, making it through the cry or before my body was merely a feeding instrument for someone. I saw something and I realised how much I missed him that person and I and it was nice to see him again with me.

So this month I am working on myself more physically, emotional and soulfully I know very Oprah sounding but I mean I want to be more self accepting because I believe it will make my affair even better because I got a glimpse of some people I once knew and I really want to see some more of them both physically, emotionally and soulfully.

What do you think on taking a lover {your partner preferably} is it good for the soul to?

xx Deb

{image with thanks here}

This isn’t my story but it is so telling it is hard it’s about my FIFO childhood and that of my parents now and then but it’s an important one because its memories like these that I live by. I have seeked permission by my beautiful parents to tell it.

I was eight or so when I heard my father tell his mate that my mother was the reason he hadn’t fallen completely into the abyss of the 80’s excess of drug, alcohol and rock n’roll so to speak. ‘That without her he would be nothing’. I can tell you the day what I was wearing and what we were doing. Saturday afternoon it was the end of the dry and beginning of the wet because I remember the feel of the sun on my neck, the sun feels it feels different in between the seasons. My Dad was in his Australian flag Speedo’s sitting on the third step of our swimming pool his mate standing leaning up on the side and I was treading water on the left side looking at them both. I don’t remember who the mate was but I suspect it was the husband of the woman who ‘shock horror’ wore a white string bikini nine months pregnant and I do remember my Dad was on a weekend from Gove and had that brown red glow to him that he gets from being in the sun.

I remember thinking that’s amazing and how much I loved my Dad for saying it what I didn’t realise was he never told my mother. As much as I love my parents it’s what I believe is their downfall, its what made marriage hard for them. My mother is as bad as my father for not talking. FIFO life for them was a necessity it was not a choice like it is me. Life presented them with challenges like step children, alcohol, drugs, my teenage years and goodness knows what else that they kept from me so Im not saying I know it all but what I did see early on was they unfortunately they stopped talking about stuff. They did fight though when things finally got too much but it wasn’t often you saw them talk although I know they did early in the morning before my mother went to work but perhaps they didn’t talk about the right stuff because marriage from the outside looking in has been hard for them.

Why they stopped I’m not sure because they didn’t want to worry each other perhaps? Perhaps it was and is their way? FIFO back then in the 80’s was even more isolating than it is now. The why I’m not sure and I can’t answer that for them and I’m not about to. What I do know is that they loved and still do love each other deeply they have been together for over 40 years they have endured ups and downs and they provided me with an amazing childhood that needs to be emphasised and I wouldn’t be who I am without that and I am forever grateful.

But.

I often wonder if they knew how life; marriage would have been easier and less complicated if they could talk to each other properly if they could tell each other how awesome each other is and that’s so important. Life is hard enough when you don’t talk its harder when FIFO is in the mix. So the message of what’s important here it was their choice not to tell each other what the other was feeling that’s not FIFO’s fault and FIFO or not and once you stop talking stop telling it’s hard to start again having been on that brink before.

Fast forward to last month I am sitting in my Aunts kitchen in New Zealand my mother is looking after my kids at home whilst I care for her sister and my father calls.

He sounded flat and you could hear the wobbliness in his voice. What’s wrong dad I asked? Nothing he replied. Nothing rubbish I said do you miss me I joked. No he said. Sure I ribbed him on. If you must know I miss your mother he said. Oh dad I said I will be home soon and so will she. Have you told her? No he said and don’t you either. I sighed.

Something I guess are too hard change when set in motion so the message is don’t allow it to start always keep talking and telling no matter how hard.

I did tell my mother one day what he said her response was your father would never say that yet I know different and it’s a pity its only me that knows.

xx Deb

{image source from here with thanks}

Last day of the school holidays and as I rouse out of bed {yes I rouse ..having slept seven straight hours count them seven..I ‘roused’} and I was as smug as a cat with mouse because not only had we made it through the school holidays with family and marriage still intact, I had slept seven hours, but I could smell breakfast cooking. notably it wasn’t mine I knew the dishes would be but I was smug all the same as it was one less thing for me to yell at someone about.

Win win.

Now admitting that the day is not over and I shouldn’t be celebrating too early however I am because we literally have made it through the school holidays a celebration in itself that will be rewarded with tonight with a slab of chocolate and coffee or two after the kids have gone to bed and I have settled in with my latest celebrity crush in liue of my fine husband. Now husband who is currently at work making the most of work while rumours ran rampant that Tony Abbott has set courses in motion that may leave us out of work sooner rather than later however yet funnily enough overseas workers will be in work and it will be me, my celebrity crush and my husband settled in together on the couch all perhaps too soon which will all be very awkward.

Regardless of this can you tell I am pretty pleased with myself? School holidays with three boys is no mean feat.

So it’s the second week of October, summer is just around the corner, the slip and slide has already been brought out and I’m already contemplating starving which juice diet I need to shed the last kilo’s hanging off my thighs..

So the few things running through my head..

1. Lost my crap at three thirty something men at the public lagoon on Saturday after they ‘play fought’ almost on top of someones child who was in the ‘shallow end’. Was rather awkward when they didn’t get the hint of being called ‘dickheads’ and then one asked me my name..I promptly told them to f**ck off and I would report them to their PO for disorderly conduct. I took a stab in the dark they were visiting naval crew and given the scramble and their lack of interest of being towed back out to sea I was right. I don’t swear in public it was embarrassing for every one all round. Seemed to do the job however.

2. I am using Big W has an excursion today. Other shoppers accept my apologies now.

3. I am looking for some really good twitter feeds? Its my new love of getting stuff.

4. Had to change the tyre on the car last week. Forgot how heavy those suckers can be however after I felt like I was 8 feet tall and could take on king kong..I wish I had that feeling everyday and I’m wondering how you can bottle it for days like yesterday where getting out my PJ’s was simply not an opition.

5. Husband and I got asked to be Master D’s god parents {my neighbours baby} happy doesn’t come close to describing how I feel. Being asked to take care of someone’s child is the biggest honour you can give someone.

6. I don’t follow football, rugby, league whatever it is but to break a 43 year drought that’s impressive here.

7. Well handled Ben here.

8. Not sure why she did but this a warning not to here.

9. I like this idea here.

10. Love this song for a Monday here.

{image with thanks to here}