Yay me!

Sigh.

MrsCranky is cranky (quite justifiably so in some respects, SaltMinesLimited does not deal at all well with return from maternity leave), but I think I can work with her and we will form a Superior! Team!

Bratson (who currently is casual while he sorts his visa) is both charming and personable. Unfortunately 6 weeks in he already has proved to be quite hopeless and is increasingly slacking. Every task he “completes” requires extensive re-work (despite detailed verbal/written instructions/screenshots). He also requires a massive amount of supervision – so much supervision that I am now working 10+ hour days so I can hand-hold and eventually barely complete my own work.

I’m still trying to cement myself as a star to MrT and, because of the relationship, there is a slight suspicion that Bratson might be underperforming because I am not giving adequate instruction/guidance. If it was not for the relationship with MrT, Bratson, being casual, would be long gone.

Much to my disgust, after Bratson had taken it upon himself to take 2+ hours for lunch without telling anyone, I was compelled to have “the chat” to him. Topics ranged from spending way too much time in the kitchen (“but the biscuits are so delicious”), going missing for hours without informing anyone of his movements, not undertaking required reading/exercises, poor quality of work &etc &etc.

MrT, to his credit, was pretty horrified by Bratson’s conduct and had his own version of “the chat” with him. Unfortunately Bratson seems to operate under the misapprehension that he can charm his way out of these situations.

Having a day off on Friday, I left MrsCranky and Bratson with a good deal of work to be going on with (MrsCranky more in the form of handover notes for tasks/projects she’ll be taking on). MrT was aware of the tasks I’d left Bratson and agreed that they were reasonable.

Imagine my suprise to receive an email Friday evening from Bratson informing me he’d completed taskB, but really didn’t understand what he needed to do with taskA (which I’d spent over an hour patiently going through with him on Thursday). Fortunately I went through same task with MrT who thought it easy.

I’m hoping in light of this I can soon divest myself of the Bratson millstone.

Sigh.

Honestly, GenY? They really need some sort of bleak economic climate (or a war) to sort them out.

When you have a child with a disability you tend to focus on dealing with specific, overt issues (such as speech therapy) rather than being attentive to the periphery. It was only when Joe/Frank clumsily bashed his little toe rather badly on a door jamb a couple of months ago and SuperHappyFunGP suggested his stance was a little awry that we considered podiatry.

The podiatrist was totally fabulous¹ and it transpires that Joe/Frank massively over-pronates and needs (quite expensive) orthotics. Hopefully this might deal with his galumphing. Must enquire how one copes with thongs/summer on next visit.

On to tax. Despite socialised medicine and private health insurance we were $7K out of pocket for medical this year (stupid fibriody ute), of which we can offset less than 1/20th. Still, we’ll both get refunds – which will go straight into the haus-savering fund.

Post-tax we headed off for our annual post-taxy boozy lunch. This year we chose Chinta Ria (temple of love). It was Don’s first visit and was, as ever, brilliant on a gorgeous, sparkly Sydney spring afternoon.

Post-lunch we wandered home through Pyrmont and confirmed we’d really rather like to live there if we can’t afford to live here in hIPPYtOWN 2037. We stopped by the Pyrmont Point Hotel for moar wine and the watching of quite, quite ridiculously tragic music videos.

Then, on the walk home, Don said, “hey – look at [x]” and I turned to look and tripped on a hole on the road and fell very heavily on my hands and knees on the asphalt.

Ouch.

I’ve applied mucho ice to the affected areas, but holy! goodness! I’m pretty sure my mobility will be compromised for a wee while as I can barely stand without sobbing.

Nonetheless, I quite spectacular day.

It’s been about 15 years since I have managed staff and Holy!Goodness! I’d forgotten how very much I am challenged by the vagarities of people (because everything is all about me, damnit!).

Other than slaving over spreadsheets, the weekend was full of footy (yay finals on free-to-air), yoga, a couple of open for inspections (we won’t be in a position to buy for at least another 6 months, but we’re researching), cooking the most magnificent slow-cooked lamb ever (from the wonderful Jennifer McLagan’s Cooking on the Bone) and generally chillaxing.

I do wish it had been longer, I’m not quite ready to go back.

It is no secret that I have seen some pretty desperate financial times in the past and that Joan, Fenton and I effectively lived below the poverty-line for a good, long while. Now that I am doing significantly better, I decided it was time that I do something more substantial than throwing the occasional $20 at people for running in stuff and decided to sign up for regular giving to a charitable organisation very, very close to my heart: ASPECT.

I called ASPECT last week and signed up for monthly contributions and they were so completely and utterly thrilled that I felt like a Very Good Person Indeed.

Yay for the lovely flashman and smallstakes!

Hurrah for wedded bliss!

And let us hope the weather improves.

This week has turned out to be more of the same, but in the interim, I embraced the weekend.

• Friday night Dinner at sushi-ya (our new fave for Japanese)
• Saturday morning yoga
• Queued for a very long while to mail golf-clubs to bro of Don
• Bought new casual, weekendy pants (I have decided to permanently eschew jeans entirely¹) and new (mucho expesive, but excellent for my dodgy knees) walking shoes
• Mad Mex for lunch pre-Swans-v-Brisbane
• Footy!
• Post-footy beers at the Captain Cook watching the first half of Carlton v St Kilda
• Lengthy post-post-footy-beers quest for food ended, most deliciously, at Il Barretto
• Late night stroll home (all the while, unsuccessfully, attempting to find any pub showing the Carlton v St Kilda game)
• Early golf game for Donaldo
• Baked craisin and cornflake bikkies (recipe source unremembered)
  

• Laundry (in Joe/Frank’s absence for father’s day weekend)
• Gardened/repotted a little
• Blu-tak’d a peg to tiles to hold recipes from the binder
  

• Baked choc-chip muffins
  

• Resolved to donate those terribly cute ikea muffin pans and cases to St Vinnies² (life is much too short to spend hours and a good deal of angst filling oddly shaped muffin pans)
• Assisted dismantling BBQ for Council rubbish collection
• Watched Don make an enormous batch of best ever bolognaise sauce from
  Adrian Richardson: Meat
  

• Contemplated making this gorgeous-looking cake from this utterly gorgeous blog, but decided to use my stash of ground almonds and the punnets of strawberries from the fridge for strawberry and cinnamon torte from BBC: Comfort Food
• Wished again for anti-fatigue mats in kitchen
• Soaked poor, wee feets
• Collapsed in a heap

That was until I walked out this morning and saw that E!S! had a clutch of poor, wee bees held captive.

The knitting bag of Avoidance

I go through phases with this project where I knit madly, make great progress and then become stymied/intimidated. It took a good deal of time to overcome the scary vee-neck, which I eventually did with very pleasing results, only to become overwhelmed by the sleeves – which I have made WAY, WAY too long (Bessie commented that they could be pants) and need to rip back and re-start at the arm-hole decreases. I’m now rather frightened that I may run out of wool, hence the current avoidance, because there is no more of this wool to be found anywhere.

The pleasing vee-neck

Many, many months ago now, during my most recent period of procrastination I did a good deal of the tiresome weaving in, so all that will remain after completing the sleeves (in 2013 at current rate of avoidance) is the sewing together and blocking. Or is that the blocking and then sewing together? Argh! Resolving that little conundrum should round out those six years quite nicely.

Verily, as The Universe is my witness, I will never knit an adult jumper again and will henceforth confine any yarnly activities to cunning hats/scarves.

Certainly not me, but here I am – with underlings! And, as MrT (nuBoss) informed me on Friday, being groomed for Senior Management (wut?!).

Meanwhile, much stuff has been going down at the SaltMinesLimited.

DishyBoss has not dealt terribly well with his effective demotion. Which is quite understandable, but it has had the effect of putting rather a great deal of pressure on AnxiousMum and me to pick up the (very, very considerable) slack. This has meant that I have needed to take over a couple of projects he has dropped the ball on. Really, I should have been picking up his extreme slack by working this weekend, but when it all came down to it, I could not bring myself to do it. Tomorrow is destined to be hellish.

After a good deal of consideration, I’ve now made a pact with myself that I will not ever work on weekends – climbing the greasy pole and stellar rise to the top be damned.