I have Early Disease - have you heard of it?

I am one of those VERY ORGANISED people. My house is tidy, my diary is up to date filled with all those important play dates, birthdays etc. I run a tight ship. I get up at 7am and can have a cake in the oven to bake by 7.15am. Apparently that is not an easy task if you have kids.

I am very efficient. Always have been. Multitasking is one of my talents. I can get about 500 tasks done in one day. Effortlessly. With about 5 tasks happening simultaneously. *I hope one day husband can learn something from me. But it looks like he never will. This is a subject that requires it's own post*.

I have always been like this and it's irritating. It's a part of who I am I suppose that I will always be the inherent organiser in all my social circles, in my family. It's my calling in life... to organise because I am quite simply good at it. It is also my life's curse. (Living with Coeliac Disease is also known as "My Life's Curse".. you can be cursed twice if you didn't already know this.)

I also have "Early Disease" which is a symptom of being cursed with exceptional organisational abilities. It is quite a rare affliction in today's society. I am always EARLY. I watch the clock and if we need to be somewhere soon, I gather everything I need, get it in the car and head out. But we always get there EARLY. I just can't help myself. Sometimes I stop myself "Don't leave yet Taryn, you will be early" but even when I do that.. I might get there ON TIME. I am never late. If I am late to anything then start worrying because SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG.

When I had kids, I was informed that this would cure my "Early Disease". But it didn't, it made me worse. Now I was so on top of my game it was getting ridiculous that a mum of two could get her shit organised so well and STILL BE EARLY.

In my observations "Early Disease" seems to be a hereditary condition. All my family have it. Some of my cousins have it from the Greek side of my family. It seems to run through our blood. I truly feel sorry for my kids who will more than certainly inherit this condition from their mother.

I Fecking Love Junk Mail. Lurrrrrve it.

I have a long and varied history of working in retail. It was actually one of MY JOBS in one of the positions that I held MANY YEARS AGO to help ensure that our customers were getting our weekly catalogue. People with absolutely NO LIFE would ring and complain about not getting their catalogue. Oh yes yes blah blah we will look into it I used to say. God. How boring, their life was so boring that they wanted to whinge about stupid stuff arriving in their letterbox. How lame. Get a life morons. Get some excitement into your lives... pur-lease!

Now as a mum and a GREAT shopper (did I say great... oh yes I did... TRUE) I FECKING LOVE JUNK MAIL. Yes I have become ONE-OF-THOSE. I get the Wednesday evening twitchiness happening as I wait for them to arrive in the letterbox.

"Are they here yet" I say to husband.

"Nope, not yet" says husband.

Why do I love catalogues? Well they are like magazines... FREE magazines with nice pictures of things to buy and they give me ideas about presents and what to buy people and what to buy the kids and what to buy myself. They tell me about the latest fashions that I can head out and grab.

And so they arrive in a big parcel of papery goodness which is very bad for the enviroment (I know I know but web based catalogues suck bad... c'mon.. don't they!?) and I go through them and instantly chuck the REPCO catalogue and the Furniture spot catalogue.. you get the idea. What I am left with is pure catalogue enjoyment. I love it.

And I can't tell you how FECKING PISSED OFF I get when they don't arrive and I have to ring up and complain to the person who now has my job at the place I used to work at.

Ahh. The irony of it.

I've gone back to my teenage years.

I have a big crush on Robert Pattinson. I haven't felt like this since I was a teenager and swooned over Joey in New Kids on The Block. What can I say. I haven't been a teenager for a very long time and now I seem to be acting like one.

What to Expect When Your Husband Gets BUFF. Part 2.

My husband is driving me bonkers. Buffness comes at a cost.

The hand held blender is always on the kitchen bench.....and seems to constantly surrounded in liquid shake mess. He is not very good at putting it away or cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. All this equates to MORE THINGS FOR ME TO DO.

There is a a constant humm from appliances. If the blender is not buzzing his shakes then the treadmill is being hammered and the place may have a noise pollution restraint put on it at some point because it is BLOODY LOUD around here and I have a headache.

And if that is not enough the Mastercard got a whipping on the weekend from the new outdoor setting. But hang on. No that isn't the outdoor setting we need... its a NEW HOME GYM THING that he is using to lift weights. Not only does he have A NEW HOME GYM THING but there are lots more heavy round things with holes in them to lift.

And while I am having a whinge, these shakes are becoming very expensive with all their ritzy fruit ingredients... blueberries, raspberries and bananas. Not only are the berries expensive but bananas are $7kg at the moment. I just bought $20 worth of bananas at Woolies. Crazy because they will only last a week (if we are lucky!). At this rate I might have to go back to work.

And that I could not bare. I need to lie down.

Fun in the sun?

The kids and I did something interesting this week. We went away. Away from messy houses and dirty floors and just get away from ...you know. Life. Fun in the sun.

We headed to Two Rocks (1hr North of Perth) with my two, Anna's two, Kristie's two and Renee's two. Are you counting? That is 4 adults. 8 kids. 8 kids under 3 years of age. For two days. Sounds like a relaxing time away doesn't it?

Oh how wrong you would be.

After packing the entire contents of my house into the back of the car at 9am we arrive an hour later to peace and tranquility. Oh wait. No the kids are here aren't they. Peace, tranquility? I think not. That must exist somewhere else, perhaps next door. Definitely not here.

So we get there and it takes a good few hours to find the entire contents of my house a place in our new abode. As we try to get our stuff INTO the house, the kids (yes all of them) are trying to find a way OUT of the house.

DAY ONE Yanchep Lagoon.
Yanchep lagoon is a beautiful spot. Absolutely superb for the kids. No seaweed, flat terrain, nice and quiet and peaceful. Except the kids are there. Mr 1.5 has a fear of all things water as you know. So he screamed the whole time we were there. Miss 3 was well behaved. Mistake number one was taking the stroller through the sand because it is very hard to lug a stroller through sand if you have never tried it. What is harder is lugging the bloody thing back to the car because I was so fecking exhausted with the day's events thus far. Kristie thought she may never make it back to the car. Perhaps she had visions of being stuck on the sand with two screaming kids until sunset rolled around. She made it. This is the part where I don't mention that I took a wrong turn and nearly ended up half way back to Perth.

DAY ONE NIGHTTIME
This is a big test for any mother. Will the kids go to sleep in this new place? Alas they did. All of them. At 7pm would you believe we had the champas popped open and the G&T's were flowing very nicely. Thankyou very much. Mums go off when the kids are asleep. We indulge in conversation that FLOWS. Questions are asked and answers are promptly returned. This does not happen in real life with kids. Questions are asked, they are interupted and the answers are forgotten while we ensure the kids do not hit/push/kill themselves while discussions are taking place. Not much sleep is had during the night as one of the little ones who is teething proceeds to keep poor Renee and his sister up for most of the night. Anna's little one is well cranky too during the night.

DAY TWO THE MORNING
Most of us are awake at the very ungodly hour of 5.30am. Mine slept till 6am. It's going to be a VERY LONG DAY. So while we are dressed and ready to go out at 7am we realise in the real world there is not much that will be possibly open at 7am. We wait and wait and head out to Yanchep National Park.

Again it was a beautiful spot with kangaroos and ducklings and koalas... and lunch. We had lunch. Everyone knew we were there because the kids were feral. All of them pretty much. Miss 3 had a meltdown to rival all meltdowns. The little boy was cranky. Not long after - we leave. Thank Christ.

DAY TWO THE AFTERNOON
Renee leaves us so now there are 3 adults and 6 kids. We are all tired and exhausted and it is fecking hot. We leave the kids to play with buckets of water under the patio and we try to relax. It's not easy to relax around water when there are 6 kids. Trust me.

DAY TWO NIGHT TIME
Thank god its night time. Kids are asleep by 7.30pm and thank god because everyone was so damn cranky. Miss 3 has a bad temp but goes to sleep. Champas, Gin, Baileys are flowing. We are oblivious to what is about to unfold during the night.

Kristie's two are up all night throwing up. Gastro has set in. Messy stuff. Poor Kristie possibly didn't actually sleep that night. I lay awake to the sound of her kids throwing up. Poor Anna's little one was not cooperating either.

DAY THREE LETS GET THE FECK OUT OF HERE
So we are up at 5.30 again. It's time to go home. Everyone is exhausted from lack of sleep and cranky kids who are all just not coping.

We get home. All is good. Next time we will leave the kids with their fathers.

What to expect when your husband gets BUFF

Husband came back from being away for a very long time. We'll call him Paul, because that's his name.

He left us looking like a normal sort of a person, not too fat, not skinny. Just Right. He came back with very big muscles. Bits are bulging where I have never thought possible. Muscles on muscles. Hello He-Man.

While I am not complaining (trust me, I'm not!) there are other things which bother me. Like the big container full of protein and other muscle building minerals that he uses to make shakes. It's the biggest container ever to have been made to store stuff in. It's embarrassing. It is so big, its hard to actually find SOME PLACE TO PUT IT.

And then there is the food. He says "No thanks" to Ice cream cakes and Taryn's roast potatoes, cheese, nachos, chocolate or anything just generally.. you know.. tasty. Instead he writes me a shopping list to buy some more strawberries, bananas and miscellaneous healthy stuff.

He disappears at 5.30am to go to the gym. He lifts very heavy things in the evenings. Watching him makes me ill. I need to sit down. It's exhausting stuff.