Surprise! I'm a single parent

I returned to work yesterday – that is really New Years day for me. The first day back at work is reality – whereas the first day of the new year is a holiday. I took all my emails from last year and put them in a folder called 2011. This caters to my anal retentive side that can’t bear to delete things without looking at them, my cautious side that wants to hang on to a few things and my lazy and disorganised quotient which hasn’t managed to get around to doing these things before. But most importantly it gave me a clean slate to start working from and think about what was important.

I had coffee with my long standing work friend and we talked about how much more organised we are in our work than in our personal lives. I said I think it is the accountability we have to others and the clear responsibilities. I wondered to myself if I could try and take a few more of my work habits and deploy them into the rest of my life.

At lunchtime I checked my home emails – two requests for seperation agreements and all the spam for healthy living and eating I have allowed to stalk me in the last year, and a notice about discounts for adult education classes next term. I am getting these because I did learn to zumba last year and beginners and advanced pilates.  Both were really good for me. I looked for another exercise related course to take before I thought that I would just keep up with the zumba (it is so much fun) and get a lot of walking in. And I am hoping to get back into swimming which is my only sporting talent. I have my youngest daughter at swimming club now and its ridiculous all us parents sitting on the sidelines when we should be in the water too. Unfortunately the lanes are completely taken up by the kids. We really have to rethink our society so there is more scope for adult exercise. Why wouldn’t a swimming club be drilling adults as well as kids?

Anyway after I had decided that I didn’t need an exercise course I surfed the other courses and picked out an eight week short story writing course and a one day ebusiness seminar. This is because I had the thought about accountability earlier.  I had a good year with my health and my house last year but my creative and business goals ended up (understandably) completely on hold. This should kick start me a bit.

A few days before Christmas my daughter came in with a big bunch of flowers that had been dropped off by a courier. The card wasn’t for me but they did have my address. There was a name. My sleuthing skills kicked in straight after my disappointment – if someone had sent me flowers I’d be gutted if I didn’t get them. First I tried some neighbors but nobody knew her, next I tried the phone book Bingo! there she was – same road but the last two numbers of our address were transposed. So I spoke to her answer machine and said I would drop them off.

Later I drove my daughter to a party and we popped them on the verandah of the lucky lady. Yesterday she rang me.

It seemed to start off badly: I have just found a dessicated bunch of flowers on my doorstep – did you leave them for me?

Oh dear – in a flash I realised she must have gone away and I had been advertising her absence like a floral neon light to every burglar that ambled by her gate! Luckily she hadn’t been burgled and she wasn’t mad – just emotional.

I think the card said the flowers were from your brother? Yes, that’s right, she said, only my brother didn’t send them, he can’t do anything like that. He lives in a home, he is really disabled. The flowers – they look like they were really nice? Oh yes, I said, a lovely arrangement I’m so sorry you didn’t get to enjoy them. And then she told me that she was enjoying them, she said that having a brother in care she always worried about how he was being treated – and seeing the thoughtfulness of this gave her faith that if the people who cared for him could be so thoughtful on his behalf to her, they were treating him well.

My mother has a tradition that we always make a wish when we bite into the first Christmas mince pie. For nearly 20 years I have made the same wish. My hand goes out and Im thinking of material things like a phone I can see the key pad of, carpet, painting the house, taking my daughters overseas and then as that pie nears my mouth there is only ever one thing important to wish for on the slim chance there is some kind of mince meat fairy out there listening in and doing her best to bequeath those wishes to us. That thing is good health.

This Christmas was a little hard this year – I have been doing major work on my house and had just finished and then, as always, there were a few extra bills. I told my kids to have low expectations but there would certainly be things to unwrap under the tree. Then we put our heads together and looked around the house for anything we could put on trade me. Its amazing what you can find to sell. Our best sell was a shower unit that has been under my bed for years. It was bought with the idea of plumbing in a shower to have a second bathroom in our spacious second toilet which was probably once a laundry. I looked it up online and you could still buy the same unit.

The people who bought it were stoked and we were too – it paid for our trip up north, presents and food for us all. I know you can’t keep expecting to find treasure under the bed but it was good to know we could be a bit resourceful and a good lesson for the kids that things don’t just happen.