Dear Darl, it’s October 1, 2011.

579 days…

1 year, 7 months.

….and I miss you so much right now.

Today, we were driving home from grocery shopping when I thought about That Old Black Car that was sometimes parked outside a particular house, just around the corner from home…

…and every time I saw it, I’d say something like “hey, wow – look at that old car” and you’d call me a goldfish, because I’d have forgotten that we’d see that car parked there every couple of months and I’d always say the same thing like I’d never seen it before.

It got to be one of Our Jokes.  You’d call me a goldfish before I ever got to point the car out to you.

…and I miss that you aren’t there to laugh at me and share injokes that nobody else would get.

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s August 12, 2011.

529 days….

Work has been getting me down.

Conversely, talking to you (yeah, I know nutter alert) is helping.  I really think you can hear me which is probably why I haven’t been writing as much.

As for work, I got offered permanency …. 2000 km away.

I had to turn it down.

I know my current school want me.

…because I managed to slip in the news of the job offer to all  three admin people…

… who assured me it was because I was at the top of the list…

…and again I’ve been given the nod for next year …in that they are trying to have me placed there but it will depend on what staffing say…

on what Staffing say

Yep Staffing: the same people who thought it might be a good idea to give me a placement far, far away from my support network, leave alone from your grave.

Gah.

They don’t get it.

Thankfully, my psychologist does and she has written an awesome letter stating that I should not be moved from my current area … nor should the children.

So I am still waiting to hear….

and I’m sick of waiting …

Dear Darl, it’s 19 July, 2011

505 days…..

I’ve been on class last week and this week.

The class is made up of a mixture of “my boys” from last year and some kids from the other class I spent quite a bit of time with.  Plus some awesome year 5s.

I love it.

I want to keep them.

….and at least some of them want to keep me.  (So lovely to have a beautiful Yr 5 girl beg me to keep teaching her for the rest of the year).

But …

on the down side, I am working along side one of the 20-somethings.

She’s quite good, this girl.  I give her a lot of time which she happily absorbs.

but then proceeds to shit all over me at other times because she is 25 and still knows everything.

about everything.

My natural instinct is to help others.

she likes my help.

I have some default setting that demands that I help where needed.

But she has a happy knack of pissing me off just as we wind up for the day by uttering the dumbest and most condescending crap.

stupid things like:

“At the end of the day, you are the classroom teacher and you can do whatever you want”.

Ummmm … no.  I can’t actually.

Nor can you, love.

These people called kids have opinions on what we do in class and so do their parents, despite you thinking they are all morons (some are but most just want to see their kids educated).

Not to mention that I am technically a supply teacher who is duty-bound to stick as closely as possible to the prescribed activities set by the actual classroom teacher who is currently having a few weeks R&R.

I guess this really isn’t a big deal.

It’s nothing really.

But I miss downloading the shite to you each evening.

I miss talking to someone who understands how frustrating some people can be.

Someone who can remind me to laugh off the pompousness that some of our young teachers are so good at.

You would have made a joke about it.

You would have made me laugh.

and I miss that.

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s May 15, 2011. Let’s get this straight..

440 days…

The kids have been going to soccer for the past few Sundays and so we were out having fun in the lovely warm autumn sun again today.

They both had fun (H slightly more I think as he actually played the game whereas K was her usual polite self letting everyone else have “a turn” before her).

While I was there, the middle-aged, bearded, rotund man from last week started up a conversation with me.

…and you know  my inability to be rude… so I was polite and chatted back.

He is quite odd, this man … I get the feeling he has an enormous model train set in the garage and operates a ham radio from a shed out the back.  I would also guess that he has an intimate knowledge of how to play dungeons and dragons…. whilst having only a rudimentary knowledge of soap and its many uses.

Anyway, we chatted about this and that   … all of it terribly awkward …. with me desperately looking for a polite “out” … and failing…

when he says…

“My name is Craig by the way …. I gather that you are a single parent too”

Oh Crap.

Oh Crap.

Oh Crap.

“Maybe we could have a coffee sometime”.

Oh Crap.

Thank God the kids ran up to me and started talking at a million miles an hour at that second and I feigned inordinate interest in goal scores and such and so was able to pretend I didn’t hear the offer of coffee …  and I kept it up until “Craig” went away.

I am such a coward.

He isn’t the first bloke to try to chat me up now that I’m “single” but he definitely was the most awkward one so far.  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and yet … erghhhh….

So I want to be Very Clear with you…

… I know I’ve been telling you to bring me someone new in the intermediate future … but I’m not and will never be that desperate that someone like  “Craig” will entice me to agree to a coffee leave alone anything else.

So to get this straight – when I said I wanted someone new, I was really only saying that I miss you so much I want someone *exactly* like you (ie cute, smart, resourceful, loving, funny and tres cool) …. I did not mean I wanted someone with a *beard* like you.

Comprende?

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s March 14, 2011

378 days….

Monday.

There was an arts incursion at school today.

A Disneyesque musical with singing, dancing, gymnastics and …. skipping.

The entire school spent the morning session spellbound.

I spent the entire morning session counting the minutes remaining until I could get the hell out of the hall…. whilst making many small children sit still.

You know how much I loathe musical theatre.

People have asked me to go to see “Wicked”.

Frankly, I’d rather stab myself in the leg.

Repeatedly.

Besides … tickets are in the order of $100 which is just adding injury to insult.  I’m sure I could get someone to stab me in the leg for free and I would enjoy that more.

Don’t get me wrong:

I like dramatic plays.

I love comedy acts.

I like live music.

But not all at the same time (although some musical comedy is acceptable. funny even.  a la Tim Minchin).

I’ve never been able to enjoy it when people are busy acting out some dramatic scene … and then suddenly decide to convey their thoughts through interpretive song and dance. ….I’ve never met a real life person who, when relating their latest fiasco, decides to climb on the table and sing and dance their way through the explanation.

So 1 hour and 20 minutes of a children’s musical did my head in.

Not to mention the prime learning time that the kids spent watching a musical … I was quite pissed off that they didn’t schedule this thing for Friday afternoon when the kids are tired and ready to sit back and veg out.

…. not to mention the fact that I don’t work Fridays.

Ahh well – I was paid to sit through it I guess.  It’s not all bad.

Life is not all bad.

It just Completely Sucks that you aren’t in it.

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s February 14, 2011

350 days…

K was sick today.

As in *really* sick.

As you know, she doesn’t complain much.  Like when she broke her arm, the ER doctors didn’t believe it was broken at first because she wasn’t whingeing enough.

As it turns out she has multiple minor infections (from top to tail) which induce 40 degree fevers when combined (who knew?)

She’s feeling much better tonight, thanks to modern medicine (seriously – I hate using antibiotics, but when you DO use them in the right application, they absolutely ROCK).

 

Poor kiddo spent the morning with Dad (I know – I had no choice as Mum as running playgroup).  Surprisingly, Dad coped well with K.  Possibly because she sat and stared at the tv in a catatonic trance for 4 hours until I could pick her up.

 

In other news, H came home talking about the dreaded Valentine’s Day.  ever so slightly Pissed Off about that because it’s not really something that I think is of huge importance at school.

…but he felt sad for ME (God I love that kid).

So … he did what any self-respecting 6 yo would do…. he made up a song and sang it to me.  And then, in all seriousness,  told me he was going to be a rock star when he grew up because he “had his ukulele – what else do I need”.  (Of course I filmed him and posted the footage on facebook – for posterity).  Funny funny kid.

 

I am thankful that we never made a big deal out of VD … it meant that today wasn’t so hard.  But I was thankful that we loved each other every day.  Every day.  We said it and we showed it.

So I miss the every day love.

but I love that we loved each other so much.

XA

 

Dear Darl, it’s February 12, 2011. bad poetry.

348 days…

I hate the moon,

I hate the stars

I hate the Earth

and I hate Mars.

I hate up

and I hate down

I get up each day

and frown.

I hate in

and I hate out

I hate north

and I hate south.

I hate east

and I hate west

In bed at night

I get no rest.

Grief is crap

and Grief is shit

But that is not

the worst of it.

My mind wanders

down rhyming paths

and this fucking poem

sounds like Dr Seuss wrote it.

 

 

!

See what I’m reduced to without you here to stop me???

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s December 21

295 days….

Well… I now have a very expensive drain.  It will cost me thousands (latest count, about $7K!) , but… the garage is drying out.

…and hey – all that superannuation money and death benefit  that I thought about spending on updating the car??? Well it’s buried in the backyard instead with only mud and a couple of IO points to mark it out.

BUT we have a low pressure system off the coast expected to bring between 300-500mm of rain in the next week and the same amount the following week.

Lets hope this works.

If it works, I won’t complain about the cost again.

Mum and I took the kids on a bus trip to see Christmas lights last night.  Interesting experience but the kids loved it.

Unfortunately, H and I were sat in front of the stupidest-yet-most-opinionated woman in Queensland.
Who had a smokers cough.
and sang Christmas carols very loudly, yet a quarter tone off-key.
next to her 50 yo boyfriend who was even dumber, yet eager for some loving in the back of the bus (but thank goodness the Nana sitting next to them told them off!).

She treated us to such opinions as:
There’s no rhyme or reason to putting THOSE pink lights there.
Why would you put PINK lights in a display.
Oh that one looks terrible – if you don’t have the product, don’t’ stick the crap in your yard

I’m sitting there thinking that some people like pink lights and HELLO! Christmas lights are dinky and kitsch but that is why we love them

But then our wonderful, 6 yo H said one of the rudest, yet funniest things ever….

She was loudly wondering (as is her want) about “How they get the lights to work on that tree because there’s no power lead”.

H: “Because its SOLAR POWERED you silly lady”.

!

Out of the mouths of babes.

We all miss you so.

How will I spend Christmas without my best friend at my side?

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s December 20

294 days….

A whirlwind day, but the upshot is that the drain is mostly done.  Tomorrow will be spent backfilling the 2m deep trench, carting off the rest of the soil and generally  tidying up.

Like the $1000 pile of gravel currently blocking the driveway will be transferred to the trench, the remaining drain placed and concreted in.

Still a lot of work, but hopefully the bulk of it is now done.

Mind you, I’ll not count my chickens until they hatch ….

 

It was Mum’s birthday today.  A bit underwhelming for her as I was so preoccupied with the drama here, but I’ll make up for it.

I don’t know what I’d do without Mum.

 

I am so tired now – the pump wouldn’t reset itself last night so I was down there about 5 times turning it off.

I hope I don’t have to do the same tonight.

I best go to bed – the boys will be back at 7am and I don’t want to be still in bed.

I miss you.

I love you.

XA

Dear Darl, it’s December 15. I. Am. Cursed.

289 days….

What a complete shit of a day.

The excavator turned up to dig the drain.

Then it wouldn’t work.

Which was a good thing because while Dennis the excavator operator was waiting he asked me about my fire ant permit to dig.

Not to remove soil, but to dig it.

It seems I need a permit when doing anything more than repotting a plant.

Because our State government cut the funding to this biosecurity project.

So the upshot is that the DPI are coming to do an inspection and issue a permit today and the excavator has been rebooked for next week.

So I did a little baking diversion therapy with the kids – the ginger bread cookies were a hit.  (Do we own a rolling-pin?  I thought we did but apparently no  … will go buy one because these bikkies were yummy)

Then this happened:

We only got ~29 mm of rain this time but with strong wind and hail.

The other big stag horn is not down and the neighbour’s awning is in shreds.

Then we lost power for 6 hours and I couldn’t make dinner.

or write you a letter.

So we went to bed early.

But the sun is shining this morning and the misery of yesterday is behind me.

I miss you so much.  Especially when I can’t fix things that you could easily fix. (Remember that we used to joke that I married you because you picked me and because you fixed stuff? …. truer than I ever knew!!)

and I miss having you here to hold me after a hard day.

I love you.

XA