It been a real kicker of a year so far!
Don’t you feel that gone are the days where you used to be able to go on leave on the 16th December and then gently ease in the year when you got back until at least the 16th January.
I didn’t have much leave this year and maybe that’s why I’m feeling the effects more, but it just seems that we have NOT stopped.
Work
Work is busy and there is immense pressure for me to sell sell sell! I’m gonna find that hard being a Marketing Manager. After all what I believe my role is, is that I do the marketing to enable the sale. But it looks like the expectation is for me to literally get in my car and go sell. Go me!
I’ve also taken a tremendous amount of extra work on with regard to the function side of stuff. I’m enjoying it tho….its keeping me out of mischief. There also seems to have been an influx of work with regard to the sections all wanting a piece of me. Never a truer word….the more capable you are at something the more gets asked of you!!!
Then there’s the our week life. There have been a few after hours meetings which have really peeved me as its precious time away from the ginger. But hey what a girl gotta do in a recession but bite the bullet.
It has fortunately tied in with a quieter travel time for Rich but heaven only knows how we’ll cope if this continues when Rich’s business flying schedule picks up!
But it’s not all doom and gloom even though the last few paragraphs have looked so 🙂
It been flippin hot here and all the locals tell me it’s only going to get hotter in February so heaven help us! The ginger as a result is not sleeping poor dude and neither are we. He wakes at least 4 times a night and is sopping wet. He’s sleeping in a nappy only and even that doesn’t help. So roll on winter please.
There has been a little respite over the past two days and never in my life have I been happier to see rain! It so funny with the ginger sleeping so badly the nights blur big time. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this but often Rich and I will be lying in bed in the morning going: “Did he wake last night 2/3 times?” and one of us will reply “ I got up for him” “ or no, wait, was that last night or the night before ?!?!”
The Ginger
The ginger is growing in leaps and bounds with the newest development being potty training. For a few months he shown a little interest and at school they have been kind of potty training him in October we sent undies to school but with all the rain and cold we had it proved a little difficult.
Then all of a sudden of the Christmas break Daniel said one afternoon that he didn’t want a nappy he wanted undies and three weeks later we are fully potty trained during the day. This has involved a few bribes especially in the department of no 2’s and also many a happy dance, high fives and stars have been dished out, but it’s such a lesson in parenthood that you can stress about everything , wonder , debate plot things or you can largely let them get on with it and the ginger has done so.
My little boy is getting so grown up and I’m aware every day just how fast they grow. Someone just stop the clock for a second so I can take it all in!!!
The house
There’s been a little panic/drama. Well not really drama but a little worry. We’ve been pushing the builder to give us a prelim costing before we go to finish finally plans of house plans no2. Finally he came back with:
“but am confident with the right amount of negotiating and cost saving we can achieve a smaller than desired yet liveable solution.”
So I questioned liveable and realised that for our budget he was able to build us a shell! And by shell I mean, four walls, roof, windows, doors. We still had to supply all the fittings!
Dude, just a little note here. THAT AINT LIVEABLE!!!
Anyway long story short, met with the architect, blew off a little steam, ok so I raised my voice a little, but the end result is that they are going to finish our plans and can assist with the build/referrals to do an owner builder with a reputable and we will come in on budget!
Seriously so we wasted almost a month with the contractor when all we wanted from the start was to owner build. Very frustrating from a time perspective but I’m still remaining ever hopeful that we will be in our house by Christmas this year, fingers crossed.
abdoantics 
Aha… I like the Owner Builder idea – please shed more light (because google and I just don’t see eye-to-eye).
We have an aircon. You have to in Durban. And after 8 years I found a setting that is an Econo Mode (who knew!!!). I’m hoping it’s considerably cheaper than most summers. But instead of Aircons in every room, we put the bunny on a mattress at the foot of the bed (she moves too much to sleep in our bed with us). It solves the sweaty thing.
Love the look of the house! And work sounds completely hectic!
So glad that potty training went well. No. 2 took a long time for us… I heard that it can take up to a full year to be 100% potty trained with no. 2, as in, zero accidents. But the peeing part was pretty quick.
Those overnight diapers worked pretty well for us too! And we bought a mattress sheet cover that was water proof 🙂