Of working, road trips, and school holidays

Hello, friends!

So much has been going on these past few weeks.  I've got a whole list of items on our agenda today.



Firstly, and just briefly, I'm now a contributing member of society!  I've rejoined the workforce... in about the most half-assed way possible.  Let me explain.

A couple of months ago my sister told me about some online typing work that a friend of hers had been doing.  No commitment, just log on whenever you want, and work as much or as little as you want.  It sounded like a perfect fit for both my skills and that old struggle of the full-time parent to find work that still allows you to be available to your kids when needed.  I'm not going to make my fortune this way, but I'm contributing and, most importantly, I'm freshening up my very rusty skills.  The flexible nature of the work is perfect for me.  We've been on school holidays here these past two weeks and I only typed one 10-minute file during that two weeks.  No leave to be arranged, no "real job" to juggle.


Next on our agenda is a major milestone in our life as a family.  We went on a holiday!  Ok, yes, it was only for 24 hours, and it was mainly because B had a welder to pick up from Tauranga, but we did touristy things and we stayed in a motel so I'm calling it a holiday.

We left home at about 5pm on the Friday night and drove to Rotorua.  Fish and chips in the car for dinner, and both girls fast asleep in the back by the time we arrived about 8.30pm.  Our motel was a bargain! ...For a reason.  It had probably been very smart in about 1984, with not a whole lot of updating since then.  I was just thankful that we only had one night there.

The thing is, though, the girls loved it. I mean, they LOVED IT.  They loved the little kitchenette with the tiny milks in the little fridge.  They loved the (horrible, lumpy) beds, the shower that only had about five jets, and they really loved getting up on Saturday morning and each having their own rocking chair from which to watch cartoons.  They didn't care that it was outdated or that we could hear the conversations from the room above us.

Still, we had a strict driving schedule to stick to so we were out of there early for a quick breakfast at ahem McDonalds, and a look at the lake...

...followed by a ride up the gondola.  This, J adored.  We got one of those stupid overpriced photos which I would have passed up except for the unbridled glee on her face in the photo.  Little A was less thrilled and kept her hand firmly on my leg the whole trip up and down.

The views were fabulous on that sunny morning.

Then it was back in the car to get to Tauranga to meet the guy to get the welder... YAWN.  Tradesman, tools, say no more.  There was a fair bit of sitting around in the car before we were off again.  Luckily I had a good supply of Chicken Crimpies to keep the kids amused while we waited.

Since we were all the way over there we decided to head into Mount Maunganui to give the girls a chance to stretch their legs before it was back in the car again for the long drive home.

It was very pretty, and you could definitely see that there was a good amount of money in the area, but what a pain to get into and out of!  I much prefer the remote west coast, thanks very much.  Although it was cool to see a white sand beach again.

Once we'd battled our way out of Mount Maunganui it was "Home, James, and don't spare the horses". Luckily A fell asleep so we just drove and drove until she awoke, just before we got to Otorohanga.  Then it was more McDonalds for lunch, another play in a pretty amazing playground, before hustling the slightly fed up troops back into the car for the last leg home.

We arrived home almost exactly 24 hours after we'd left.  I often forget how much smaller New Zealand is than Australia.  I calculated that we'd spent about 7 hours in the car.  Comparatively, if we'd driven that long from Adelaide we wouldn't even have got to Melbourne yet.

Considering what a roaring success the trip was with the little girls - they're still playing at "going to Rotorua" - this is something we're looking forward to doing a lot more of.  The driving distances are manageable, there is HEAPS to see, and the scenery is endlessly beautiful (snarky comment from J on our trip when I told her to look out the window, "Trees, trees, more trees".  Remembering the hot scrubby plains of my own childhood road trips I realised my kids will never appreciate how lucky they are).

Right, what's next?

Oh yes.  My little A turns three in September.  And that kid is on a mission to grow up overnight.  Other than sleeping in her big girl bed - yep, she's still in there almost every night, she has decided to toilet train herself, and she's finally learned how to pedal her tricycle.  This is huge, people, huge.

The toilet training, same as J, has all been entirely self-directed.  I still bear some deep psychological scars from J's year of toilet training so my expectations have been very low.  It's actually going great.  I don't want to jinx anything so that's all I'll say.

As I mentioned earlier, we've had two weeks of holidays from kindy.  They just went back on Monday.  The kindy is very play-based and relaxed so I can't say they really needed a break, but it was nice not having anywhere to be.  We arranged lots of playdates, we went to the park, and I got basically nothing done that didn't revolve around entertaining two small people.  How did I ever get anything done before??  Oh that's right.  I didn't.

The chimney sweep came to clear out our blocked fireplace which was deeply fascinating.

The weather was pretty terrible the whole holidays so there was a good amount of book reading by the fire.  And, dare I say it, these two have been getting along and playing beautifully together.

The complexity and detail of their imaginative play is at an all-time high.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again (and probably again many more times), I love this stage of life that we're in.

How did I get here?

A while back, I alluded to how my whole life suddenly changed when I got into the oil and gas industry.

Since it's the end of the year, which often puts us in a reflective mood, I thought I'd tell you the long convoluted story of how I ended up who and where I am today.

I've put the photos in this post as close as possible to the part of the story when they were taken.  I'll caption them so you have some idea of what you're looking at.

So...

Back many years ago, when I was... 21?  22 maybe? I had quit the supermarket job I started right out of school when I didn't get into any university courses.  I went from the supermarket to behind the bar of an Irish pub, and I was really hating it.  Crying every day before work kind of hating it.

My dad took pity on me and gave me a job in his law office as a rounds clerk.  I'm not sure if they even have rounds clerks anymore but back then my job was walking around town every day filing documents in court, delivering briefs, picking things up, dropping things off, and conducting property settlements.

For whatever reason, I really enjoyed doing property settlements.  Back then (again, this has probably all changed) all the conveyancers in South Australia would meet at the Lands Titles Office every morning.  The banks had desks around the perimeter of the room, which was always packed with people and LOUD.  You walked around yelling at the top of your lungs for the conveyancer you were meeting, then you lined up to see the banks deal with the mortgages, and that's how property changed hands.

Now bear with me.  Things get a bit complicated here.  I did say this was a convoluted story.

I did my conveyancing diploma part-time at night, and I got a job at a small private mortgage company, which was then sold to a bigger private mortgage company, who transferred my role to their external conveyancer... who wasn't much fun to work for.

The view from my old house in southern Adelaide.  The black clouds are a good reflection of how I felt about that house.

After the private mortgage company was sold, and I got transferred to the external conveyancer, and he wasn't much fun to work for, I went job hunting again (always, always, looking for a change) and got a job at a company which did a lot of work for oil and gas clients.

I think this is Moana beach in Adelaide.  It's a beach south of Adelaide that you can drive onto, at any rate

Around the same time, I met my then-boyfriend's brother's girlfriend's sister (still with me?) who worked for a client of my new employer.  The boyfriend's-brother's-girlfriend's-sister had been transferred to a job in a little town called Roma in Queensland.  She recommended me for her old job in Adelaide, which I got.

I loved it, loved my job for the first time probably ever.  Part of the job was giving safety presentations.  I think the goal was 50 presentations.  In my first year I gave over one hundred presentations, all over the state.  Turns out, I love public speaking!

Me, describing in lavish detail how gas pipelines can explode and destroy everything in the vicinity.

Heading north on another pipeline safety trip, looking towards the Flinders Ranges I think

I was earning good money, feeling motivated and positive.  I quit smoking.  I got really dissatisfied with my personal life which in comparison seemed like the same old depressing hamster wheel.

Anyway, after not long at all, my boyfriend's-brother's-girlfriend's-sister was leaving her job in Queensland.  Once again, the role she was vacating was suggested as the logical next step for me.  Once again, I got the job.  Yes, in Queensland.

It never once occurred to me not to leap at the chance.  Of course I would move to Queensland if the opportunity arose.  Why on earth would I say no??  Always, always, looking for something.

I was to move to Queensland around Easter that year, with the intention that my boyfriend would be in Roma within a couple of months.

I left Adelaide mid-morning and arrived at the house in Roma late at night.  It was a big new-ish house, almost empty.  I walked in the front door, set my bag on the kitchen bench, and let out a huge sigh.

I love that I have a photo of that very moment.

I remember it so clearly.

It felt like the first time I'd exhaled in years.  At that moment I knew my relationship was over.  I was so unhappy.  It wasn't fixable.  It took getting away to realise it.

The drive to work in Queensland.  After that I never want to commute through city traffic again.

Then, very shortly after, I met B at a community boxing match.  He got my phone number from a mutual friend, we went on a date to the second-best Chinese restaurant in town, and I remember looking at him as he paid the bill.  I'm not a believer in love at first sight but I knew that this was going to be something.  This was the start of something good.

Sunset from my house in Roma, Queensland.

Of course you don't just sail off into the sunset.  Ending my previous relationship was hard and messy and painful, and severing things financially took months.  But there was no question about what the right thing for me was.

I had never wanted children.  Never wanted to get married.  In fact Past Prue would probably look at my life now and feel a bit disappointed with how ordinary it's turned out, what with the baking and gardening and stay-at-home-parenting.  But what Past Prue would not be able to fathom is how deeply contented and happy she would be - at last - in this very ordinary life.

I rattled around a lot for the first 30 years of my life.  Looking back it's easy to see that I was never very happy.  Always, always, moving job or house or friends, always looking for something.

Always dreaming of a different life without knowing what it was.

I found it!