Don’t wish them away

I saw a post on Facebook yesterday from someone who was celebrating their youngest child finishing the HSC.

I felt a brief stab of envy. Part of me wants the high school years to be over, so I can start planning the next phase of my life.

But I gave myself a good, metaphorical slap.

Because I also know that I should cherish the next two years.

Like the words of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi … “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.”

I’ve blogged about this before … you never know it’s going to be the last time that your child will want to hold your hand or read them a story at night.

There will be many milestones ahead in my youngest child’s life, as she races towards adulthood.

But I still don’t learn. The youngest will wrap her arms around me in a big, long hug and I can only stay still for a few seconds before ducking out of her embrace to get on with things.

I berate myself for not staying enveloped in those hugs for longer. All too soon she will be living out of home and taking those hugs with her.

Meabwhile, the eldest turns 18 today. Their childhood is officially over and I honestly don’t know how it slipped by so fast.

One day the eldest was the cutest bub that I had ever seen, the next he was towering over me and getting home at midnight.

More about the birthday tomorrow.

As for yesterday, I took things down a notch after the excesses of the weekend.

No I didn’t.

I attended two Zoom meetings, finished three advertorials, started a freelance article, wrote a few stories for Drinks Digest, got approached by a recruiter about a marketing role, picked the youngest up from school and dropped her to work, collected a few forgotten items from the supermarket, went for a walk, cooked dinner and worked until 10.

Still sounds crazy, but it was actually pretty peaceful. I’d been expecting my heart rate to be through the roof due to the workload, but what I’ve learned is that if you don’t panic about the big picture and calmly tackle things one task at a time – in order of urgency – they usually end up being way less terrifying than you imagine.

However, I did give up on sticking to the 16-8 diet. It involves fasting for 16 hours a day and consume all of your calories during the remaining 8 hours.

A friend told me the weight just falls off you, so I didn’t eat between 8pm and noon last week.

I was very, very hangry every day.

I didn’t think I could handle my workload yesterday while hangry, so I had a piece of wholemeal sourdough with Vegemite.

I might try again tomorrow, as I still feel guilty about eating enough for five people at Bron’s 60th on Sunday. The food from Corella Catering was so delicious: Peking Duck pancakes, crispy potato rosti with roast beef, Mediterranean vegetable and olive tarts with pesto, four cheese arancini balls, parmesan-crumbed chicken with pesto mayo, fish and chips in little paper cones, American cheeseburger sliders and red velvet cake.

How could I resist eating two each of all of them?

The weird thing about finger food, however, is that you turn around three hours later and still feel hungry for dinner. Well, I do.

I couldn’t be bothered cooking, so I grabbed a Woolies dinner out of the fridge that I’d bought for emergencies.

They get two thumbs down from me for value. There are a couple of tiny bits of meat and the rest is sauce and rice. Don’t waste your hard-earned $8 on them unless you have a bird-like appetite.

Oh! And I forgot to tell you that I saw Gladys B while on one of my walks on Saturday. She had a baseball cap pulled down over her face and looked very sad. I wish I’d smiled at her and wished her well, but I never know what the correct etiquette is with famous people battling scandals. Would they prefer you to ignore them or gush?

OK, today is another crazy one and NBN are doing planned maintenance yet again so there might not be wifi. Better dash!

Song of the day: Joni Mitchell “Big yellow taxi”