Temporarily Closed

 

...but back to regular programming when I'm back from vacation.

Who Whinges Wins

 

Guess who has a killer cold AGAIN and despite all good intentions (also expressed here) did not stay at home to rest, but powered on. I know, I know. One occasion I did not want to miss was private (my MBA graduation ceremony last Friday), the rest were business-related. In particular, I did not want to bail out on my colleague (super stressed as it was) with whom I had co-organised a mini conference and with whom I was supposed to co-moderate/-facilitate it. I woke up that morning feeling deader than dead, but dragged myself there and only found out afterwards that pulling myself together did not do me any favours: she actually had the impression that I was more or less totally fine and "normal" as I did not show it. Truth be told, I was hurt by this blatant lack of empathy, but then reflected on it and realised I had myself to blame: if you just grin and bear it and always show up, you can't expect gratitude, nor understanding. Who "celebrates" every little ailment they have and stays home at the very first sneeze gets pity, not the thankless office heroes and heroines. This might just have been the sign from the universe I needed.

Bubble under stress test

 

Last weekend, one of Highflyer's brothers with wife and two (very lively and energetic) boys, four and six years old, stayed at the country house as they departed to a two months trip to Asia from Vienna on Sunday night. I jokingly call Highflyer's teenage boys (16 and 19 now)"savages" as the house looks super messy whenever they visit and their rooms in particular as if several bombs had detonated, but pre-school boys are on another level, oh yes. I already knew that from my friends' kids, but when they are houseguests, it's on another level. We have off-white carpets in the living room and I struggled not to mentally count the times they ran through the house with either their sandals on, or barefoot after having run through wet grass and soil, not mentioning Nutella-stained fingers touching the wall and other surfaces. I outwardly remain calm and suggest wiping off feet and washing hands, but inwardly I am like "WTF, how do parents cope with this on a daily basis?!" I really like my place clean and relatively tidy and while Highflyer is also pretty messy and has an impressive degree of "dust-blindness" I manage to create a calm and decently clean bubble whenever there are no relatives visiting and I sometimes wonder if I could even have managed to live with kids who leave plastic toys, fingerprints and stains everywhere. Guess not.          

Rediscovery

Even though with 36 official hours/week I don't really identify as working part time, my first month as a part time worker is over and I could not be happier about my decision to have Fridays off. Bliss! Apart from more time for various out-of-the-house activities to explore culture and nature, I have more time for various hobbies that I had neglected. While I always find time to cook and bake, my pile of fabrics and sewing magazines alike had been growing without me having put any projects into realisation. The other weekend I sewed an easy top and a dress will be next. I also intend to get back to painting after absolutely AGES of not having touched paintbrushes. Being creative and producing things - my thing are definitely projects that can be finished within a day maximum, patience not being my forte - gives me so much joy and energy and feel very privileged indeed that I now have the luxury of an extra day off without really suffering from the reduced hours on my paycheck.