Kiss smart: The BB goals for 2013 - For the soul

Twenty thirteen is promising to be a big one here at babblingbandit.me. Too keep myself in line I have started a blog series on my goals for the year.

I've named them KISS SMART goals to remind myself to Keep It Simple Stupid and to make sure my goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

One month into 2013 and already my goals are wavering. Without getting all negative about it I'm writing to get myself back on board the positivity train.

A couple of weeks ago I outlined my first goal:

Kiss smart goal number 1: Health Basically, I have pledged to lose 7kgs by 30 June. To do this I will give up sugar, eat whole foods and exercise more.

Why is it always so much easier said than done?

Because life happens. Because, as the old cliché says, old habits die hard. I want to assassinate those bad habits and replace them with good ones - healthy positive habits.

I had a major setback a couple of weeks ago: I attempted to go back to working in an office and fell flat on my face again. I hate that shit. That feeling of going backwards. It totally freaks me out when I feel great and then something sends me back to feeling bad. I run. Get the fuck outta there. Eat shit to feel better.

Ah, what?

Eat shit to feel better? What is that? Self sabotage for an instant high is what it is. It doesn't work Vanessa (talking to myself through my blog surely means I'm losing it)! I never has worked.

But I have a plan to turn this thing around. It includes writing more goals in order to help facilitate that healthy eating/moving goal.

This is a holistic plan. Bare with me.

Which brings me to...

2. For the soul

I think a lot of people get caught up in the doing and achieving part of goal setting. What about the goal of relaxation? We all need to give ourselves time to rest and relax and take a moment to just sit still and do something we enjoy just for fun.

To nurture my soul I intend to do the following:

a. Continue with fortnightly therapy sessions

Someone told me recently I should lessen my reliance on therapy. Well that person is a doofus. Therapy keeps me in check. Whenever I take extended periods of time away from my check ins with Shrink I feel lost and out of control. And even when I do go there and I'm feeling fine, I walk away feeling even more confident that everything is on track.

b. Read more

This is going to be hard this year as I have so much going on. I'm enrolled to do one subject this study period for uni so no doubt there will be a lot of academic research to be read.

I have a lot of books on my Kindle that I've purchased and have either started and not finished or have not had a chance to open. Reading is such a great way to unwind and escape, especially if it's fiction you're reading. So I'm going to make more of an effort to escape with a book.

Rather than go to bed with my phone scrolling through my Twitter feed into the early hours which, considering it is an election year, will no doubt cause all matter of anxiety, I'm going to escape to Westeros and follow the trials and tribulations of the Game of Thrones gang. The politics there might be just as blood thirsty but at least it is in a make believe land rather than in Canberra!

c. Time with friends and lovers

The hardest thing for me as a sole parent is finding time to see friends on my own, and if I am lucky, maybe even a lover.

Even though I know a few great babysitters, it is still an expensive night out if I have to pay someone to look after Noo while I hit the town or the sack (hahaha - get it?).

Noo's grandparents absolutely adore him but they have really busy social lives too. And they live over two hours drive away most of the week. The key here is booking in Nanna and Pa well in advance and then try to book in drinks with the girls or a date with a bloke on those nights my parents are in town.

I love my time with Noo. We get up to so much fun but I do really enjoy hanging out with adults and forgetting about parenthood for a couple of hours or more. I plan to make this more of a regular habit this year.


OK, checking in with the KISS SMART pledge:

Did I keep it simple?

Goal: Nurture my soul

How: Keep up fortnightly therapy sessions,
read more fiction, spend more time with friends and lovers

Are my goals smart? 

Specific: See above
Measurable: Anxiety levels will determine if this goal has been successful
Achievable: Totally
Relevant: Absolutely
Time-bound: Yes, to be measured on 30 June 2013

Two down five to go. Check back soon for the next goal to be set for 2013: Finances. Eeek!


How are your goals or resolutions going so far? Sticking to them or have you fallen off the wagon like I have?


V.

All I want for Christmas is...

I've been writing some serious shit lately, like Friday's reflection on my experience as Noo's mum over these last four years, and then I confessed that Santa's Sugar Sleigh has been too hard for me to resist. I was so glad to find myself tagged by the ever-awesome Kylie from A Study In Contradictions in a Santa Wish List meme currently making the rounds on the interwebz. Now I can have a little fun!

Before I get stuck into this list I just wanted to do a little blog loving arse kissing, cos I think Kylez is a legend. Her blog is always such a lovely and positive place to visit. Her Instagram feed is full of joyous pictures of her family, and she leaves the loveliest comments, not just on this blog but all over the Aussie blogging community. And how gorgeous is her daughter, Mia! The photos Kylez takes of her are outstanding. My favourites are the numbered singlets Kylie has dressed Mia in once a month and taken pictures of her to track her physical changes. I am defo copying that if I ever have another bub.

So basically I have a massive girl/blogger crush! Check out her blog if you haven't already: www.kyliepurtell.com

Back to my Christmas wishlist. Here it is:

Santa, this is for you mate. Read it and make it happen. Thank you. 

1. Money, Money, Money

Kylie asked for "a billion dollars" (cue that guy with the pinky finger in the corner of his mouth) but I just want an unlimited supply of cash. I don't want to have to think about how much I need now, next week, month, next year or for my retirement. I am absolutely shit with money. I'm 38 and still I cannot manage my income. I get paid monthly and I live like a king for a week a pauper for the next three.

Shopping is another addiction of mine. I love looking through Pinterest for inspiration for new clothes purchases. I have so many clothes for a chick that doesn't get out much, and sometimes I go through phases where I just want to wear leggings and a t-shirt and gym shoes day after day, but I love my clothes collection. There's even a lot of stuff in my wardrobe that has either only been worn once or twice or still have the labels attached! Eeek.

I also love technology and gadgets which can get pretty expensive, so Santa, I need more cash to indulge in these kind of purchases. I can browse the Apple shop or JB Hi-Fi for hours looking at new headphones or stereos, etc. Wasting hours Googling reviews of gadgets like computer mouses, keyboards, styli, speakers, external hard drives is also a favourite past time. Geek I know!

Santa, I also need all this cash so I can buy more toys for Noo (and me) to play with. We love toys! We love collecting whatever is the latest thing. It started with Thomas trains and tracks, now superhero action figures and their respective vehicles and corresponding dress ups for Noo to wear. There will defo be more crazes we have to get into so I'll need unlimited funds to feed that habit as well.

2. A boyfriend and sex on tap

When I was a teenager (actually still to this day) we always had a notepad next to the phone where the shopping list is written up. Each member of the family could write what they needed on there. You know like tampons or milk, canned tomatoes, shampoo, whatever we'd run out of... I always wrote on mum's shopping list "a boyfriend". It was done in humour with a tinge of honesty. Not that I wanted my mum to choose my boyfriend, I just wanted one. Still do. I'm just so crap at finding the right one.

When I get that boyfriend, I want sex. Lots of it. (Are you listening Santa? It isn't too much to ask to find a man that wants lots of sex, surely? And I don't mean with you Santa, you dirty old man! Yuck, I can't do it with anyone over about five years older than me. That is just gross.)

I love sex. There I've said it. I want it regularly. With someone I trust and love. Someone I can give myself over to. Not one night stands with random strangers. I've had plenty of that type of sex and it sucks (no pun intended because I never went there on a drunken one-nighter).

When I hear of my married friends who "can't be bothered any more" or are "too tired" or "don't have the time" or are "happy just snuggling on the couch after the kids have gone to bed" it astounds me. Maybe that is because I've wasted a huge amount of my 30s celibate but sex with the right person, hopefully the person you're committed too, is awesome! Or at least it should be! And if it is not, get help. See a professional.

3. A successful blog that entertains as well as educates

I want my blog to be funny, touching, entertaining and a place where I can tell my stories and my posts be the kind of blog posts that people want to read (therefore converting into page hits) and come back to read the next one. A blog so good that everyone wants to subscribe to it (hint, hint reader - sign up now!) And Santa, I'm pretty sure you can deliver this to me, you are magic, right?

I hope that people who have experienced anything similar to what I write about might find my blog as a place to come to help them feel like they are not alone. Or that it could help someone, even just one person, realise that no matter what shitty dirty hole their Rock Bottom looks like there's always a way out, somehow. I also want what I write about to help remove some of the stigma against mental health and addiction.

Santa, I also want to get invited to heaps of cool blogger events and meet more cool people and get free stuff. Is that bad? Oh, actually, Santa if you come through with item number one the free stuff doesn't matter, but I still really want to keep meeting new people through blogging events.

4. The ability to not crave for anything

Santa, listen carefully to this one: I want to not feel the need for anything. I don't want to crave lollies, chocolate, cake, ice cream, cocaine, wine, beer, Valium, cigarettes, weed, new clothes, shoes, sex... I want that hole inside me that sometimes feels so empty and hollow that I stuff it with anything just to feel complete to disappear. Sometimes the wanting is so intense and I don't know what will make it go away. And anyway, anything I do stuff in there is only a temporary fix.

I would like a permanent solution please Santa. Please fill the hole.

A little healthy yearning or ambition is fine, but that dark emptiness I so often feel within me can go to be replaced with a constant sense of satisfaction.

Santa, I'd like inner peace. Please.

5. Good health and happiness for all

Santa, please, the other stuff really doesn't matter, what I'd really like is good health and happiness for me and all my family - fuck it - make it for all the good people I know and the ones who read my blog. I'd like no harm to ever come to anyone of us. I'd like Noo to go through school without ever being bullied. I'd please like my parents to live forever without aging. Fuck, now I am getting a bit fantastical here. I don't want anyone of my family to ever die.


Ok, so I've managed to get deep again! I really shouldn't write late at night.

Now to tag some bloggers to get the list moving on:

Mummy Ate Me

Bachelormum Style

Project Kathryn

The Camera Chronicles

Mum of Adult Kids

Get cracking chicks! There's only 15 sleeps to go!

Thanks to Jess from Essentially Jess for starting this year's wishlist meme.


V.

Sex, drugs n rock and roll anyone?

It is Monday night and I've sort of got the time now to blog. I say sort of because Noo is still awake despite the fact that it is 9pm. He is sitting on his bed, which is just behind me, playing with a noisy toy which is kind of distracting, but what can I do? Our room is divided into four areas - his 'room' (which is actually the area beneath my loft bed), my sleeping area, my desk, my built-in wardrobe - all cleverly furnished with a lot of Ikea furniture for maximum storage space.

We've both had great days: Noo at daycare, after a week off; and me hanging out with my sister and niece, as I do every Monday.

There's so much I could tell you about. (FYI, Noo has just fallen asleep. Yay.) Thinking about blogging content has become a constant source of internal commentary since the lead up to Blogopolis. It's similar to when I first got into Facebook in late 2006/early 07. My brain was constantly thinking in terms of 'Vanessa is...'. Such as 'Vanessa is having a cup of tea', 'Vanessa is washing her face', 'Vanessa is having a crap day'. Annoying!

I've found my mind has been casting back over the last five years for content. There's so much sex, drugs and rock n roll I could write about but I want to make sure I get it out right. So much that has happened to me just doesn't seem real. I think by putting it in my blog and getting it out there might help me come to terms with it and allow me to move on. Some of it is really trashy and some of it is just plain horrible.

Until recently The Babbling Bandit was all about my experience with my lap-band. On occasion I wrote about my past, but I haven't elaborated too much. The fear I have with giving away too much of my private life is how it might impact on my ability to get a job in the future. I know it is par for the course these days for employers to Google potential employees. Would an employer read this and think "no way, I am not employing this crazy lunatic"? Or would they not even find it at all? I am constantly asking myself this question.

What goes on behind those eyes?

My last post also got me thinking about dating again. Whenever I let myself think too much about being lonely, I think for godsakes woman, do something about it.

What would a potential partner think if they read this blog? Run a mile I would expect. And how do I meet people anyway? I don't work and I don't go out, except with Noo or other members of my family, or occasionally to catch up with friends. Teetotal single mums do not get invited out often. 

Plus dating sucks. I've just been reminded by how much too, by reading back on my blog. Check out here and here. Sounds like a fucking nightmare! I really do not want to get back into internet dating, no matter how lonely I am. I don't want to have to justify my life to anyone. I don't know how to sell this package: overweight, unemployed, single mum with excess baggage on offer to the highest bidder... sounds great... not!

Anyway, I'm not going to post this tonight. I'm over thinking my words. I think I write better when I just let the words fall on the keys. I keep writing about writing. It is annoying. It is like a stream of consciousness brain fart. I've lost my voice again. I'm just typing to get a flow on but it is not happening.

Oh, bugger it, I will post. Get something out there. I'll just chuck a little picture in and out it goes.

V.

Something is missing

It's Wednesday afternoon; I'm tired, cranky and just a teensy bit anxious. I need a whinge so I might as well do it here.

Noo is home on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and these past two days have been those kinds of days that I just wish would be over and done with so it was time to drop him off at daycare again. He can be so frustrating at times! As he hurtles toward his third birthday it gets more and more frustrating when he doesn't listen to me and take instruction. For example when I'm yelling at him across the shopping centre to stop running and come back to me he barely turns around to smile before continuing to run in the other direction. So annoying! I hate being one of those parents that is constantly yelling out their child's name across the park, store, street, wherever!

I need a kid break. I need a long sexy weekend away having adult times with another adult (male of course) without having to think about any responsibilities or any of the other little things that keep me feeling guilty that I should be doing this or doing that. 

I wrote recently that I was cool with being single and that is true, but I really feel I need to take a lover. Take a lover. Wouldn't it be nice if it was as easy as that. I think I heard one of the characters on Downton Abbey the other night say something about 'taking a mistress'.  Turning 37 on Sunday just reminds me how I'm wasting my most sexually potent years being abstinent. It sucks. When I was in my 20s and early 30s I had plenty of sex but mostly it was bad sex. Drunken fumblings with men I barely knew or when I was in a long relationship in my early twenties I was too embarrassed to say what I wanted and how I liked it. And honestly, I don't think I really knew back then anyway. Now, I have the confidence, I know what I like and I've lost 20kgs so I'm READY!

Meeting people for dating is now suppose to be easier than ever. With there being so many dating sites (eg RSVP, eHarmony) and now even iPhone applications (Blendr) in theory it should be really easy to get a date and subsequently some sex. And I tried the old fashioned way a couple of Fridays ago. About four single mates and I went to a very busy bar in the city and it really was amazing the amount of male talent there. There were hot guys everywhere. The only problem was the boys weren't talking to the girls. It seemed typically Australian where all the guys were standing with their groups of mates and all the girls were in groups and everyone was eyeing each other off but no one was taking it further than that. Not until that is, confidence levels rose with blood alcohol levels.

As anybody who has read my blog in the past would know, I don't drink. I haven't done so for about three and a half years. I'm not a wowser and I have no problem with people drinking around me but when guys start getting silly with it, and even less attractive, sleazy with it, I take it as my cue to leave. And that's just what I did on that Friday night.

After one of my friends decided to go back on RSVP for a look, I thought, what the hell, I'll reinstate my profile, update it a bit and see if there's anyone on there worth thinking about. After a bit of searching I was really amazed by the lack of potential, except for one guy. So I sent that guy a 'kiss', the free communication that the site has to allow users to get in first contact with one another. He eventually sent one back saying he'd be happy for me to email him. Now to email someone other than using the pre-worded 'kisses' you have to purchase stamps and they cost a fortune. Its about $50 for 6 stamps that are valid for a month from the purchase date. There weren't 6 people that I wanted to email and anyway, as anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, I'm always skint so there was no way I was going to spend $50 to contact one guy. Plus I'd never had to pay for stamps in the past, so I wasn't going to start now. 

I told my friend about this dilemma and she offered to email this bloke using her account because she had some stamps that were about to expire and she couldn't find anyone worth using them on herself. So away she goes sending an email worded by me which included my email address that I use for people I don't know well yet. He emails me back and finally we have contact out of the RSVP system.

The email the guy sends me comes from his usual address which has his full name. Of course, armed with this information, I go straight to my browser and Google him. I felt so indecent doing it. I felt like a stalker or peeping tom or private detective doing a background check. The information is there, its public, but is it right to go snooping on someone you're planning on meeting on a date before you've even met? This guy is like me, he's all over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and has a couple of blogs. So within minutes I had his entire work history, information on the kind of people he follows, what he likes to do in his spare time based on tweets and from other sites his name had been included in. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which way you look at it) for him he has an unusual name so it was easy to find all this out.

After a few get-to-know-you emails we exchange phone numbers and before long we're on to texting each other little messages about what we're doing and photos of what we're seeing and we set up a date for Monday night. Although I've done the online dating thing for a decade now (god I'm old!) I still find this all kind of strange. Before I've even met the person I'm going out with we already know so much about each other!

I guess in a lot of ways its good. You can weed out the people who would absolutely be no fit straight away. You can decide before you've met whether or not you think you could compromise on this issue or that. And you can find out pretty early on if you have the same core values and if you want the same things (eg kids, which is a biggie). 

But, as I said earlier, I am really just looking for a regular shag with relationship potential maybe, but mostly for unadulterated down and dirty adult fun with some hanging out in between (eg movies, galleries, dinner, etc). There wasn't enough of that in the last relationship. It seemed staged and predictable from the outset. The relationship before that, the one many years before, was at the other end of the spectrum - pure hedonistic trashy sex, drugs and alcohol fueled lust that went on for weeks. Then three years later, Mr nice guy who's so chivalrous and polite that we move from dating to married couple within weeks. What I want now is something in between.

So, could this guy be the one? Not necessarily The One but the one for right now. I hope so. The potential is there so far. We had a great time on Monday night and I definitely felt the sexual chemistry. He lives really nearby which is also an added bonus. We also have a lot in common and a lot to talk about, so who knows... 

Fingers crossed.

V.