Reason two of neglection: Weddings, babies and everything else.

Posted on December 1, 2011 by suggieblue

So I’ve given you reason number one of neglecting SuggieBlue readers – Hiring, Heels and Holidays. My efforts of training New Guy zapped any energy out of me right up until my final week of work.

Here’s reason number two. I’ll begin with a quick snapshot of my nice relaxing first week of maternity leave.

Don’t you just feel relaxed looking at it?

See, one of my best friends got married on November 19th. You may remember me telling you I had four weddings to attend between November and April – three of which I’m bridesmaid in. You may have also seen some pictures I put up for this week’s Wordless Wednesday post from the November 19th – the first of said weddings.

I finished work on November 11th – a Friday. Right from the word go I was trying to cram too much into one day. I’d booked an all day ante-natal class for the next day, followed by a meeting with a dressmaker to see if she could work a miracle with my bridesmaids dress (you can see the final result in the afore mentioned Wordless Wednesday post).

The wedding day itself I was very much looking forward to, but my attire – not so much. Surprisingly my dress was still fitting fine around the belly pre-alterations; it was more my thighs (my sisters and I have always thought we’d make good frogs or weightlifters because of the size and shape of them) causing me grief. I suppose my belly was causing grief in its own way, since the dress was bunching up at the lower back area; but this isn’t so uncommon for me since I have what people call a ‘swayed back’. A lovely big dip in the lumbar are which, when combined with a muffin top, makes tops that are just a little too tight ride or roll up. It’s very, very frustrating.

Anyway, the dressmaker I was hoping to work miracles on my dress is Kathy from Hide & Seek Designs. And she made these dresses for two of my bridesmaids last year.

Ironically, the girl in the first picture was the bride on the 19th and her dress here was made in just over 24 hours so I had lots of faith in Kathy’s skills to be able to do something about my dress in just under a week.

She advised me, if I could get hold of another dress in the same material and colour then she would be able to work something out. She’d seen some dresses very similar on sale recently. My only problem was, we’d purchased the dresses in March and they were discontinued then, so it was going to be interesting to see if I could get my hot little hands on another. I had two things going my way: 1) was that I still had the barcode on my dress, meaning I could tell the department store the exact code; and 2) Of the four bridesmaids, only two of us were wearing this particular style. The other two were wearing the same colour and material, just in a different style, so I knew there should be more chances of getting the same colour and material since there were two dress styles.

Thank goodness for Sunday trading is all I can say, because I was able to call our local department store the next day. They told me they had nothing there, but Sydney should have some – according to their computer. I was up early Monday morning, called Sydney – and yes! They did have one; it was half price and they sent it to me express post Monday afternoon. Phew. One thing off the list!

The day proceeded as per my schedule says. My visit to the chiro set off a chain reaction of lateness and I had to schedule another visit for later in the day so she could strap my belly for a little more support. It’s not that I have a big belly for how far along I am (36 weeks), it’s just I get pretty severe pubic bone pain nowadays from anything I do.

Anyway, I’m blaming the chiro for my losing track of time at work as well (I know it was my first day of maternity leave but i was helping out with some bookwork). I only gave myself 35 minutes to get myself to my Specialist OB appointment 45 minutes away (my work isn’t what you’d call ‘close to home’) – and that was just driving time. When I rang the hospital to tell them I’d be late, they decided it would be best to reschedule, as the OB wasn’t able to stay any later than what she already was. So I rescheduled for Thursday – since it was the only other day we could both do.

The rest of the week just kept getting busier. I was much later home from the hens night on the Tuesday than I thought I would be and I’m not sure I’d managed to recover by the time Friday came around when I had an early delivery of the wedding cakes. Thankfully it was another of my best friends (the one in the second picture of my bridesmaids) and the plan was we’d have a coffee and quick catch up before she headed off to work and I headed off to the dressmaker for final alterations and collection of my dress.

I came straight home after picking up my dress, packed for the wedding (I hadn’t had time to do it), went and got my nails painted (French of course) and headed off on the 2hr journey to Bunbury.

The week obviously didn’t end there, as you can see from my schedule, but that’s where I’m going to end this post. Needless to say, by Sunday evening when I was safely back at home, I was one tired girl and it took me until the middle of last week to recover. Just in time for wedding two of the afore mentioned four I’m attending between November and Easter.

So there you have it. My first week of maternity leave gone in a flash! What did you do on your first week of maternity leave? Did you spend it rushing about trying to organise things? Or putting up your feet and resting, like you’re supposed to be?

Candice

Wordless Wednesday: The answer to the riddle (with just a few words).

Posted on November 30, 2011 by suggieblue

So on Monday I posted about my crazily busy couple of months and left you with a riddle. Here it is again:

What happens when you put a strapless mini-dress and high-heels on a 34wk pregnant lady?

I should also add ‘and a wedding’ to the end of the riddle.

So. Just what do you get when you put a strapless mini-dress and high-heels on a 34wk pregnant lady at a wedding?

The answer is this:

Ok, so these aren’t my feet. I wasn’t really in the state of mind to be taking photos of my feet by the end of the day. But they looked similar to this – including the nail polish - just with red lines from the shoes across the toes and top of the foot.

There is another answer to the riddle though. It’s a little more pretty. Just a little…

Mr.SuggieBlue & I waiting (someone thoughtful was getting me a chair).

The good thing is I got to have my hair and make-up done AND you can only just see Miss Snowflake’s bump. The bad news is my legs look huge (that’s normal for me anyway)! Oh well. The things you do for your best friends!

I’m linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday. Head over to her page to see what other Wordless Wednesday delights are around. You won’t be disappointed!

Candice

Holiday’s, Hiring & Heels: Reason 1 of neglection.

Posted on November 28, 2011 by suggieblue

It’s been a pretty crazy seven weeks since I got back from my awesome, relaxing holiday to Tassie. As I write this, I can’t believe it was almost two months ago! I didn’t do much while I was there. Just chilled with the family and took lots of photos. You can check out some of them in my October Photo Challenge – there’s lots of spring photos on there! Spring is my favourite time of the year, and I really, really miss Tassie spring’s. Especially since my mum had her garden landscaped. Most of my photos were taken around her garden, around the farm or at our family seaside holiday spot of Tomahawk. When I say seaside, I mean the house/shack is no more than 20 metres from the beach. Here’s a picture I took looking through the window while sitting having lunch one day.

: Tomahawk Bay from Villa Vista @ Tomahawk

You can see that the beach is just there. Right in front of you. Oh – and it’s available as a holiday rental too, for those who might be interested in a quiet family retreat to one of Tassie’s best kept secrets. Maybe Three L’il Princesses can do a post on it for her My Tasmanian Backyard Series! Let me know – I’ll put you in touch with my mum. I’m sure Nobashake has some suggestions too!

So anyway…

I’m officially on maternity leave. According to my iPhone app, I have 28 days until Miss Snowflake is due and she’s the size of a Crenshaw Melon. Whatever the hell that is! It’s exciting… and scary. Are we ready? Around the house – no, but mentally I think so. We don’t really have any ‘plan’ so to speak. Just give birth and do the best we can. We’ll take all advice given to us on board and take what we want from it. Personally, I think having a strict birthing plan or parenting plan can set yourself up for failure – or certainly make things harder for yourself because you’re not living up to certain expectations. That’s just my opinion (and Mr.SuggieBlue’s).

The week I got back from holidays, we hired a new person at work to replace me. It was hard work teaching him – working as an Optical Dispenser isn’t just about selling people glasses. There’s a whole lot more to it, and you need have a whole lot of knowledge stored in your little (or big) brain. Thankfully after working there for four years, I’ve managed to grasp much of this knowledge – though there is still a whole heap I don’t know.

So we were training New Guy in the basics first. Reception. How to answer the phone, take messages, book appointments, mark jobs as received and collected, process payments and do the banking at the end of the day. Every little thing we usually do during the day, we held off doing so we could show him how to do it, meaning we often had a big backlog of stuff left to do. For those of you who have trained someone new in a job, you’ll know what I’m talking about. You end up extremely behind in all your jobs; but you patiently deal with it because it’s all going to be worth it in the end. Right?

Well… it’s a lovely theory, but not what happened in this case. New guy quit the week I left. He quit on the Monday and I finished up on Friday. For five weeks we’d patiently explained things over and over again (he seemed to be a mere male who could only process one piece of information at a time), and then he quit citing he didn’t want to do sales or marketing. Helloooo? You’re in retail. We sell things. What did you expect? “Grr” is really all I can say to that. Five weeks of training for nothing. Five weeks of paying two people to do one job for nothing. My boss was pretty stressed and upset about it – since we’re coming into the busiest time of the year, and another staff member is leaving after Christmas, leaving just my boss (the main Optometrist), a casual/part timer who can only work max 4 days a week, and a casual Optometrist. We’re all trying to think positive, for our own sakes, hoping it’s a blessing in disguise and that someone better suited is just around the corner.

That’s my first reason for being so busy and neglecting my SuggieBlue readers. I really am very sorry! By the time I got home from training New Guy and trying to catch up on things that didn’t get done as a result of said training, I was completely and utterly exhausted and couldn’t be bothered doing anything other than eating and going to bed.

So here I am. In my third week of maternity leave and it’s only now that I have time to scratch myself. Some say I’ve been doing some serious nesting. I’m not so sure about that, but stay tuned to make the judgement yourself! Oh! And if you’re in for a laugh, you can also find out the answer to this equation: