I’m on the upwards swing of my mood cycle, and enjoying it immensely. I have DONE things and FINISHED things and I am back for a little while in the place where hosting an art exhibition actually seems like a good idea. This is unlikely to last so I am getting as much mileage out of it as I can. 🙂

Last week I learned that Centrelink (Australian welfare) had given me until today to gather a very important assortment of supporting documents from individuals and organisations. Considering the Easter long weekend knocked 4 business days out of the already tight timeframe of one week, I have been a very busy person. It’s like war, really. Of paperwork. The most stubborn and well informed person wins, if you don’t starve to death or beat your own brains out against your desk in the process. At least, that’s my take on things. So today I uploaded a stash of documents and I am hoping that I’ve made some pencil-pusher somewhere very happy and they can photocopy them in triplicate and file them all to their heart’s content. I’m done!

Yesterday I picked up a second big collection of prints for my upcoming exhibition and spent the evening cataloguing them and filing the originals safely away. Very time consuming process, but also exciting and satisfying! They are sooooo lovely. I am very excited about showing them to people. And I’m hoping like crazy that my catalogue will make re-orders much easier for me, and adding new information a simple process… please?

I was recently introduced to trello.com and I’ve trialled it this week to help me keep track of my various to do lists… I am managing the household admin for my family, a lot of admin for our amazing teen, everything for my exhibition, and my own personal stuff that needs doing. I’m loving trello. Managing multiple projects is much easier when I can update and modify things online instead of endlessly rewriting my lists as they get harder to read over time. I am taking on admin better than I ever have this year, I’ve accepted that it’s just going to be one of my roles in my family and the faster I adapt to that and the more skills I develop the less stressful it will be. There’s still days I want to set my desk on fire, of course, but I am delegating more and accepting that my fledgling organisational skills are needed and necessary and help my family run more smoothly. I’m also finally counting the admin as ‘housework’ and not double loading myself trying to make sure I do lots of that too- I think growing up it wasn’t treated as a real thing that actually took time and effort and skill, like lots of the things women traditionally did for their families. Repositioning it as important (and something no one else wants to do) and acknowledging that it takes dedication on my part is helping. We keep tinkering with new structures for housework and bedtimes and homework and sharing the very small space we live in now there’s three of us here and bit by bit I feel like we’re muddling our way towards approaches and systems that work for us.

Pregnant still at 22 weeks now. Bubs kicks and does back flips and wriggles around every day, mostly just a nudge here and there, but sometimes a good hour of frenetic dancing I can’t sleep through. It’s pretty awesome to have that constant reminder they are alive. Both Rose and I are still struggling with pretty intense anxiety about them, personally I feel almost obsessed by my fears about having a stillbirth. I still haven’t heard from my midwife despite many phone calls and messages left for her. I have a letter from the hospital telling me she will be in touch sometime, and reminding me that until I have that all important first meeting I’m not officially in the program or allowed to ask for support from them. So irritatingly I’m trekking off to my GP for hand holding and advice about horrible itching (which can be a sign of important things going wrong, or can just be my usual unhappy skin being extra unhappy) and so on. I know having a midwife doesn’t magically make anything safer or better but as the weeks go by it’s getting harder not to resent not having her on board or take it all personally or feel a bit overwhelmed by the fears of something glitching with my health and being kicked out of the midwife program anyway. There’s a whole lot of things I can’t control and won’t be given a choice about, and having that restrict any further is a possibility that feels suffocating.

Health wise I have a lot more energy, thankfully, and the nausea is much rarer. Food aversions are in full force still and unpredictable. Cravings are starting up, so far I’m fascinated by coffee which is unusual for me. I’m restricting myself to 2 cups a week but those I am very much enjoying. Possibly linked to that is that the fibro pain levels are high, and my mornings and nights are nasty. I can barely walk most evenings due to severe back pain and uncooperative nerves that don’t want to bear weight on my legs. Mornings I wake up feeling like I’ve been kicked a few times by a horse. My life currently puts deadlines in front of me that require I drag myself into the world of the living and make things happen. Once the deadlines have passed I usually need some days of seriously not adulting very much at all to recover. Tomorrow will hopefully be one of those days.

Tonight, I’m loading up an online game to reward myself, and in the background I can hear Rose singing our stressed teen to sleep. I adore my peoples. ❤