Life right now...

A short summary of my life right now:

• My house stinks of cat pee, or more accurately, peromone filled cat spray. My cat keeps spraying into the gas heater, despite my efforts to keep it covered with a plastic tablecloth. I turn it on and the house quickly fills with a vomit inducing odour. This has happened about 5 times now, and it's putrid. I have invested in a Sureflap cat door which I am getting installed soon - it reads microchips and will only let my cat inside. I'm hoping that this will reduce his stress levels as I have seen other neighbourhood cats come into the laundry through his cat flap...
• The boy drought continues. I have not met a single prospect. I know that the reason is probably because I'm desperate and that if I stop looking and trying so hard, it will just happen... I have always had difficulty just living in the present and not stressing about the future, and this is no different. It is very depressing.
• Work is boring. I'm over it.
• I spent an idyllic week relaxing at an amazing hotel in Lombok recently. I really need to plan another trip so I have something to look forward to.

What's hot (aka the list of stuff I'm enjoying):

• Shopping. As always.
• Kids. They brighten the darkest days, I love their outlook. 
• Adventure. I'm yearning for it.
• Snuggling with my kitty cat on cold nights.
• 'I Didn't Know I was Pregnant' - the most hilarious TV show. 
• Chocolate. Food in general.
• Warm bubble baths.
• 5 star island paradise hotels and daily massages.
• Instagram. 12 months on and still lovin' it.
• Stumbling across a random garage sale on my street and buying unique and cheap items.
• Succulents. I haven't killled mine yet, in fact, they're spreading.

What's not:

• Smelling cat pee on everything. Getting down on hands and knees to clean up cat pee.
• Discovering suspect looking stains all over my housemate's carpet with the help of my UV light which I bought to show up cat pee. Disturbing.
• My housemate's inability to assist with any household chores, and inability to turn lights off or keep his bathroom window open so that he doesn't cause water damage (which has already happened).
• My waist line, and not being able to eat unlimited chocolate.
• Work. Going there every day. Getting through every day. Everything about it. 
• Spending too much money on meaningless crap to make myself feel better.
• Spending too much money on my cat in the form of expensive urine cleaner, an expensive cat flap and installation which involves having a whole glass sliding door replaced.
• Clutter, and accumulating more meaningless crap.
• Worrying about the future.
• Meaninglessness. 
• Loneliness.

Quote of the moment:

It has been a while!

I haven't blogged for ages, and so have decided to do an 'update' post, as much as a momento for myself in the future as anything.

Boys

One thing I didn't blog about at the time was the break up with my now ex-boyfriend. We (or I) ended it in November of last year. Things had been not great for about 6 months, and I started getting frustrated at him and realising I didn't want to spend this minute, let alone the rest of my life with him. I also started noticing things about him that I really didn't like - I'm not sure whether I had turned a blind eye before because I was 'in love' or whether he was hiding his traits, probably a little of both.

We went on an overseas trip and on it, there were many instances where I realised how selfish he is. When he dumped all the bags on me and I was standing at the airport holding both mine and his, an image flashed through my head of 10 years down the track: I'd be holding all the bags, dealing with all of the kids running around me etc while he went off and did something like get a tax refund on his latest designer suit purchase. It wasn't what I wanted in a husband or the father of my children.

I realised several things the more I thought about it. Firstly, he was a very selfish and arrogant person and that wasn't going to change. Secondly, he brought out the worst in me. Thirdly, he was and always had been a lot more into the relationship than I had - I was swept up in it at one stage, but I don't think I ever loved him. I certainly had never said 'I love you' in the 18 months we'd been dating.

I was thinking about all of these things, and mulling over whether to end it or not, when I found out he was cheating. It made the decision very easy of course. The fact that he blamed me for his cheating was confirmation of what I already knew - he was selfish, and would not take responsibility for his own actions. Everything was always everyone else's fault.

I never thought I'd be a girl who was cheated on. When I had heard stories of cheating guys, I had always thought 'How couldn't she have known' or 'That would never happen to me'. It did happen to me, and it sucked... but that was 7 months ago now and I'm well and truly over him.

A few months after the break up, I started online dating. I've been doing it on and off ever since. It's tiring though - I don't like repeating myself over and over on emails to different guys, and then it's nerve wracking to meet them in person. So far I have been on dates with around 10 different guys. There was one guy who I was very interested in - we went on 7 dates over around 1.5 months, and then he suddenly ended it. Something changed at around date 5 and I couldn't figure out what at the time - I guess I'll never know what was going through his head or what was going on in his life. I was upset about that for a little while, but have moved on now. Of the other guys, I haven't wanted to see any of them again after the first date. I am very picky!

Work

I have well and truly come to the conclusion that I don't like law, and don't want to be a lawyer. I'd like nothing more than to go back to uni and study primary school teaching. It would mean a pay cut, and a drop in 'status' but at least I'd (hopefully) enjoy my work.

I have been thinking about this option for over a year now, and it's looking more and more likely as time goes on and as I struggle to get through every work week. Surely there is more to life than doing a job you really don't like...

Part of me was hoping I'd meet the man of my dreams and have babies, then I'd be able to be a part time Mum and do part time legal work which would provide a decent income for me... but I haven't met anyone and who knows how long it could take.

I told my Mum that I wanted to go back to uni and study teaching. It didn't go down well. The whole family is intent on changing my mind - they think it's a terrible idea. They are also all 'high achiever's, and up until now, I have done everything they could have wanted - breezed through high school with top marks, breezed through law school with top marks, gotten good jobs etc.

It's a hard enough decision for me to make without family support, as my Mum and the rest of my family are very important to me. I keep putting off the teaching idea so as not to dissapoint everyone (I brought it up around a year ago and my Mum's reaction was even worse, she absolutely freaked out) but as time goes on and as I struggle to get through each work day, I am starting to care less and less about what she thinks. I think I'll soon be ready to take the plunge.

Other

The 'other' category is not as exciting as I'd like! My life really just centers around work, getting through each work week, catching up with friends on weekends and then doing it all over again. 

I have put on weight (arrgh, yes more weight). I have been eating way too much chocolate and blaming it on hating my job and life etc. I have started trying to exercise - I now do boot camp twice per week which is fun and makes me feel good. The weight is sticking though, I'll actually have to cut out the junk food as well as exercising if I want to loose it. I think I gained another kilo over easter and am now at my heaviest EVER and am struggling to fit into my 'fat' clothes, so I really have to start doing something... I don't feel particularily motivated to though, which is worrying.

There is more in the 'other' category to come, so my next post can be based around that. My fingers are getting sore from typing now, this is such a long post!

Lisa's Bucket List

In no particular order, this is my 100 item bucket list!

1) Shop up a storm in New York

2) Learn to ski

3) Go on a roadtrip in the USA and Canada

4) See the Northern Lights

5) Do some study in psychology

6) Experience the cherry blossoms in Japan

7) Live and work overseas for six months or more

8) Try scuba diving

9) Swim with sharks

10) Fire a gun

11) Experience La Tomatina in Valencia

12) Take a road trip around New Zealand

13) Snorkel at the Great Barrier Reef

14) Go on safari

15) Visit every continent

16) Go on an international business trip (not for a conference, that doesn’t count!)

17) Improve my photography skills

18) Improve my photo-editing skills

19) Make a mosaic

20) Learn how to make candles

21) Become a confident cook

22) Host a 3 course dinner party (all cooked by me)

23) Restore a piece of furniture

24) Stop biting my nails

25) Make a big difference in at least one person’s life

26) Volunteer

27) Own a beach house or a farm house

28) Spend a week getting pampered at a 5 star spa

29) Start my own business doing something I love

30) Create a website for said business

31) reate enough passive income so that I don’t have to work another day in my life

32) Learn about tax minimization (when I have enough assets etc to make it worthwhile)

33) Have children

34) Pass on a family heirloom to my children

35) Mush a dog sled

36) Visit the San Diego Zoo

37) Live in a restored heritage house / cottage

38) Have a big garden

39) Spend time at a Vipassana/silence retreat

40) Own a dog

41) Attend the Mardi Gras in Sydney

42) Renovate a house DIY style

43) Go travelling with my Dad

44) Go travelling with my Mum

45) Make a living working with kids

46) Plant a tree with my kids and watch them grow

47) Get a professional makeover (makeup, hair, clothes)

48) Go camping in a foreign country

49) Fly first class

50) Have a mud fight

51) Go hot air ballooning

52) Publish a book

53) Learn to sew

54) Swim with whale sharks

55) Learn to surf

56) Make a piece of artwork and hang it on my wall

57) Take a pole dancing class

58) Go island hopping in Greece

59) Get engaged

60) Get married

61) Fall in love

62) Experience a white Christmas

63) Write a list of 100 things that make me happy and take a photo of each

64) Learn to ride a scooter or motorbike

65) Throw a dart at a map (blindfolded) and travel to wherever it lands

66) Visit Disney Land. Better still, take my kids there.

67) Buy a map of the world and pin all of the places I’ve been

68) See an octopus while scuba diving or snorkelling

69) See the Grand Canyon

70) Visit every state in Australia

71) Take my kids on a roadtrip

72) Visit the New 7Wonders of the World + the honourary 8^th  (only Petra, Chichzen Itza and the Pyramid of Giza to go!)

73) Visit the New7Wonders of Nature (Jeju Island, Komodo Island, Peurto Princesa Underground River and Table Mountain to go)

74) Visit Zimbabwe

75) Complete a Tough Mudder competition

76) Go on an Alaskan cruise

77) Invest in the share market

78) Own a convertible

79) See a Cirque de Soleil show in Las Vegas

80) Donate blood

81) Write a journal every day for 100 days

82) Win an overseas holiday

83) Volunteer at a Starlight Foundation children’s hospital play room

84) Learn proper dining etiquette

85) Eat at one of the world’s best restaurants (once I have mastered 84!)

86) Stay in a 6 star hotel

87) Own a house outright (no mortgage)

88) Design and build my dream house

89) Help out a random stranger in distress

90) Raise my kids bilingual

91) Learn and master meditation

92) Try a fried snickers

93) Experience Halloween in America

94) Make a bucket list scrapbook

95) See a glacier

96) Become a foster carer

97) Ride a horse along the beach at sunset

98) Host a bonfire party

99) Attend an Olympic games, or soccer world cup

100) Go spelunking

Depression

It has been a very long while since I last wrote on here, but that's the great thing about the internet - your presence remains for almost all of eternity. That can be a bad thing too of course, but let's focus on the positives :)

A lot has happened in the last 2 months. It honestly feels like so much longer.

I became very unhappy with my job, which led me to being very unhappy with life in general. I felt like a failure - hopping from job to job, not really achieving anything, not being able to settle anywhere and be happy, ruining my CV (because no one wants to employ someone who can't commit!). I was finding the actual work insanely boring, and I couldn't see a path for myself within that organisation. I jumped around from wanting to quit law and study teaching, to wanting to go back to corporate law, to wanting to be a nanny again, to wanting to go back and study medicine, to wanting to... just not be alive.

Before I knew it I had slipped into some sort of depression and I just didn't want to do anything. I would get home from work at 6:30pm and go straight to sleep without dinner, not because I was tired but because I really didn't want to be awake. I binged on chocolate and lollies (because I just didn't care, and needed to get through that minute/hour/day) and isolated myself from everyone. I would also cry for no reason every evening.

There is a lot of truth in this...

No one would have noticed this at work because it was a pretty lonely place, and the expectations of me were so low that I could hardly 'not deliver'. I was doing substandard work but getting good feedback, which is in itself very disheartening.

I really felt like I couldn't get out of the 'hole' I was in, and wanting to be dead (and taking sleeping tablets not to overdose, but just to not be awake so I could escape that feeling) is actually very scary. I knew something was wrong so I went and saw my GP, who hooked me up with a psychologist and put me on anti depressants.

It took about a month, maybe a little less for the anti depressants to start working. I'm not sure how much they contributed to my recovery, because a big part of that was changing jobs. I had started looking for jobs during the worst period, because when I didn't care about life I new that it was time to take drastic measures. It was not a hard choice to leave that job, but I didn't really want to go anywhere else either.

The job I accepted sort of found me - I had been applying via other avenues, which didn't result in anything and this offer came pretty much out of the blue. It's not my dream job, but that probably doesn't exist anyway. I didn't know and still don't know whether it's the right direction to take my career in or the right fit for me, but I didn't have anything to loose and I didn't really have the energy to keep looking elsewhere.

I accepted the new job, and my previous employer made my resignation from there a lot more stressful than it needed to be... but thankfully that's all over now.

So where am I now? I've only been at this new job for two weeks. I'm feeling better than I was, but still feel like I'm balancing on a ledge and teetering over an edge sometimes. It's too early to tell whether I'll be happy in this job and whether it will tick the right boxes, but the people there are nice so it's a good start (I'm trying to be optimistic!).

I'm like this guy!

I know you're thinking - life isn't all about work... that's true, and there's more to the story. I am having boy issues too, but that's another story for another day. My sister is yelling at me to come and watch a movie with her that I said I wanted to watch, so I've got to run!

House, work, relationships and life

As I stated in the last post, a lot has happened in the past several months. I am in two minds about how much personal stuff I feel comfortable divulging on here. On the one hand, I don't think anyone I know in real life reads this. I could also probably benefit from being a less private person and sharing my feelings more. On the other hand, I *am* a private person, I do find it hard to share and I am conscious that if someone who knows me came across the blog, it wouldn't be hard to work out and confirm who I am. With this in mind, here is a some-hands-bared account of my personal life over the last 9 months!

(1) The most exciting development is that I bought my first home. It is a townhouse in a suburb not too far from the city. It's an older house (with the maintenance issues which come with that) but is very liveable, and having been there for a few months now, I am starting to really feel at home. I furnished it almost completely with second hand furniture sourced on Gumtree. Here are a few cheeky snaps of the decor, and I will share more in a separate post:

It definitely has a vintage feel and is very 'girly' according to the boy. I don't think there are any bargains to be had in the Perth housing market at the moment, but I'm happy with what I paid for it. My only regret is not insisting on my rights at the pre-settlement inspection, I ended up allowing myself to be bulldozed by the bitchy real estate agent acting for the seller who did her utmost to shut me down and make me feel stupid whenever I raised an issue. My lack of persistence in this regard resulted in me not following up on some things I had gut feelings on, and the result is that I'll need a new air conditioning system installed (for which I have been quoted $4k) and a few other things. On the other hand, I paid $8k less than what I was ultimately willing to offer for the house so it evens out in the end, and I know I won't make the same mistakes with my next purchase (I will be pushy and bitchy in equal parts back!)

(2) The other major development is my relationship with the boy. We met when I moved back to Perth from Canberra last year (so about 11 months ago now) and took things slowly. I didn't tend to see him during the week during my previous job, as it was just so demanding and draining. If I ever got out of the office at a decent hour, I would just want to crash into bed straight away. Now that I have time on my hands, the dynamics have definitely changed. We are seeing each other a lot during the week and have gotten closer. I still feel like we're in 'early days' and not where we'd otherwise be after 11 months, because we hadn't really started combining our lives until recently.

This relationship is teaching me a lot about myself. I don't like to open up and share, and I find it really hard to reveal my true feelings, especially when I am feeling sad or down. I respond by being moody and isolating myself. I also think that I'm afraid of commitment. This is unusual for the female I think, it's more common with the guy. My stand-offishness and reluctance to give of myself is probably what snared me the boy in the first place though, as he had to work hard for my affections (and who isn't tempted by a bit of a game?). Until now, my relationships have not felt serious and so I did not put any pressure on myself to be 'sure' or question whether it felt 'right'. Now, many of my friends are getting married and having babies - partly due to that, our relationship feels 'real' and like it could or should be final.