Surprise! I'm a single parent

I’ve noticed that there are little advertising banners up the top of my entries. And – perhaps sinister – perhaps intelligent – they RELATE to what I’ve been writng about. I’ve had a few thoughts about this:

1. There is no evidence anyone else is reading this blog except a little advertising program that must link key words in my entry to its selection. Ergo – this program is my number one blog fan
2. If I used interesting words like… um …. vegemite, umbrella, corset, topiary, cutlet or junket – which would it pick to relate to advertising?
3. This must be a pretty interesting programme to write. In terms of the logic and trade offs it uses.
4. Am I making someone money?
5. Is there a way I could have some?

At this stage it is just interesting – not annoying. Its also been slightly helpful. The makers of the advertising program and the advertisers themselves might be interested to know that after I blogged about a certain outdoor household appliance and my issues with the back yard I saw a little add for Consumer pop up which led me to go compare prices and performance at their site. So – even if nobody else goes in and reads the ads the blogers themselves might be doing it. On a limited level they are working!

Footnote: the advertising didn’t change from this entry – I will keep watching – maybe my advertising fan has grown bored and stopped reading?

At Christmas time my mother made some remark about being poor and my youngest daughter chimed in:

“We are poor too Grandma! We are getting poorer and poorer! In fact soon we will be the poorest people with Sky TV!”

 How true. She was sitting on the floor playing with her Polly Pocket jumbo jet from Santa. Santa and visa actually. At the time her Dad and I had a shared credit card and he was making regular contributions to it. After Christmas he asked me to curtail my extravagant lifestyle – by which he meant the broadband and Sky package.

I agreed to take over the credit card bill if he agreed to stop using it. So its April the first and Ive gone just paid off the 3 k that was on it. Meantime new bills have come in and Im in no way debt free but at least I feel like I can make my own financial decisions and if my kids and I like broadband and sky over other things then its our business.

The credit card is unfortunately only the tip of the iceberg called shared debt.

There are lots of things its been very easy to adjust to as a new single parent. A lot of this is because I kind of was a single parent before so I was already adjusted. But the lawn was an area I had always successfully managed to not own in the maintenance sense. Well even that’s not strictly true – I have always been the remover of dog poo. I have not however been the trimmer of grass. You might assume that trimming would be a preferable task and you’d be kinda right.

Thing is though, that lawn mowers have always scared me. I have visions of toes being lopped off. I think they might run off and cut through important shrubbery. I can’t cope with the idea of pouring in petrol.  I have tried and failed many times to pull the rip cord and get a spark and get the damn thing to go.

I watched my lawn grow with foreboding. At least once my ex did it for me. Maybe he was still, like me, not sure what we did now we didn’t coexist or perhaps feeling it was because I continued to do his washing and look after his kids. But anyway he stopped. And I tried and I couldn’t get the lawn mower going.  Turned out it was kaput.

So then Im trying to think what to do because its really a pocket handkerchief of a lawn.  Even if I had spare cash it seems ridiculous to pay someone to mow it. Anyway i asked this guy I know if he could mow it. He owed me a favour. And he said he would. However he didn’t – he turned out to be useless at making a time and coming to do it. And before during and after this period I spent a lot of time stressing about the lawn.

What I kind of realise now was that there were and are a lot of things going on that are just completely out of my control. But somehow I think I ought to have been able to manage the lawn business. It kind of symbolised the insecurity of my life now. My lawn was growing out of control.

But its a small lawn and I thought to myself whats the worst that can happen? Really? maybe I just bit by bit dig it up and put in potatoes – cos food is expensive and potatoes will keep us fed. Maybe I put in a few apple trees and gooseberry bushes. Why is it I have to have a lawn? And as I started to think like this it got better. I thought – I don’t have to do my life like its been done before. I can do it different.

Then one of the neighbors came around to pick up his kid and something made me ask him what kind of mower he had. A flymo he said. And I borrowed it – Ive borrowed it twice now in fact. No petrol and no rip cord and it goes. I managed to face my lawn mower fear. So – for the moment – I still have a lawn and I’m looking on trade me to see if anyone is selling a hand mower or an electric because I don’t really like borrowing. However it is much better than feeling funny and powerless getting a man to do it for me.  Luckily at Easter they felt they could ask me to look after their cat so I don’t feel like a complete user. I feel like a neighbor who exercises reciprocity.

If I am ever in a relationship again I want reciprocity.

of course I wasn’t always a single parent. I was cautious about parenting altogether. I was 30 before I had my first child. And I was cautious about being a solo mum. I was with my kids father for 15 years before I upped and left him. 

Now I’m a solo mum I find myself thinking about that title: what does it mean? In a way my kids have more parents than they did before. Their dad has gone from passive to active. And ‘single’ parent – that sounds far too NZ datingesque.

So proud owner of a dog and a HUGE mortgage and custodian of two kids I no longer pick up my ex’s socks and explain to a babysitter I need to book her cos I have no way of knowing if its good fishing weather or not. Im still sleeping on my side of the bed but there are some good books and the remotes on the other side – and guess what they don’t snore.

It has been the first summer of my singleness. Lawn keeps growing and I will learn mowing.