It be 10 yearrrrrs

10 years tomorrow since I started work at my current place of employment.

I was 24, and just about to finish Honours. The girls were 5, almost 4, and 15 months old.

The very idea of being in one place for 10 years was beyond foreign.

Today we celebrated! Three of us started on the same day 10 years ago. We had morning tea and, because it is also International Talk Like a Pirate Day, we dressed like Pirates. (As a side note, I am going to a Pirate Bar tonight and I am so super excited).

Disclaimer: The rest of the post is fairly boring and documents my career pathway in fairly vague terms. Just so it is on the official life record now I am blogging. I do not blame any of you for stopping reading now, but for those of you who say "I don't know how you do it", well this answers part of that!



Apparently when you are as "old" as me your desk is full of cobwebs!
(The one day I arrive at the office "late").

Ten years ago Tink was quite chirpy about me going to work, but she was very confused about a place where they were never going to go. She knew that Guides was sometimes just for Mummy, and sometimes they went. Sometimes it was "fun" Guides. Sometimes it was "adult" Guides where they had to sit and colour in while Mummy was at a meeting. She knew that sometimes they went to uni, and sometimes they didn't. It is hard to believe that they are now at the point where they can catch the train to see me and wonder in!

I was smugly pointing out to all the doubters that I had not only found a job, it related to my area of study (well one of them, but I had never really expected to find something that used my History studies specifically), and it was part-time.

I am in my fourth role since I originally started. 10 years ago I started three days a week in a part-time job share admin role. Within 2 months the (then) big boss was talking about me going back to study. Meanwhile in the exhaustion of post Honours and beginning work I laughed at her.

Within 4 months I had changed my hours slightly so that I could take the girls to school three out of five days, so I could do puzzles with Tink three mornings. I made sure I could do this until the Pixie finished Pre-Primary.

Within 8 months I had increased my hours to suit work, but I balanced the around the girls.

Within 2 years I was bored. I decided to go back to uni because I loved my colleagues and I enjoyed my work but needed a bit more of a challenge once the girls were all sleeping through the night. Plus, to be honest, it never really occurred to me I would get into Law so I thought it would take me a  bit longer to find something to do. (Yes, this time the big boss laughed at me.)

3ish years and a position change, followed by another one at 5ish years which evolved into my current role.

Once the Pixie was in year 1, I made sure I worked all mornings (unless it was a uni day) so I could be home 4 afternoons a week after school with the girls. Yep, it was still part-time. But I did 0.8FTE over five days so I could do it (Yay for night classes). I still think this was a great decision. Mornings are not quality time in our house, but I treasured those afternoons with the girls and the opportunity to know that I was getting the best of both worlds (also the worst if you want to look at the amount of time available to do housework, luckily being domestic is really not my thing).

Work let me change my official work hours every semester around uni and the girls for the next six years. I went full time when it got to the point my role needed me to increase my hours. At this point the girls' only concerns was that they wouldn't have to miss any dancing/soccer/Guides.

For about three years I purchased leave so I could spend the majority of the school holidays at home with the girls.

Why I have I been here for 10 years? I think the above describes it pretty well. Plus I have awesome colleagues, who tolerate my insane life and my even crazier children. Also, it would take me way to long to clean my desk. And I have colleagues who will dress up as pirates, and celebrate any occasion going. Did I mention awesome colleagues?

There is an old saying "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life" (Confucius), and I would like to say that it is true! If I can teach the girls this, I will feel I have accomplished something as a parent. I don't care what they do: doctor, firefighter, stay-at-home mum, gardener, rock star, but I will be very grumpy if they turn into one of those people who sit around and complain about their life without doing anything about it.

Meanwhile, while I am celebrating how much I love my job and that I am not studying .... I really need to do something about the domestic side of my life. I don't hate it enough yet to go back to study to have an excuse.

Happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day Everyone! xx

We came, we saw, we took photos .....

Sorry, I haven't posted for a few days. However, those of you who read my I-hate-being-at-work-when-my-kids-are-at-home-on-school-holidays-even-though-the-rest-of-the-year-I-love-my-job self-pitying whinge last week will be pleased to know that the reason I haven't posted is because the Pixie and I had a weekend of adventuring while the big girls were on camp (and I did an assignment too, but I am not writing about that because that is nowhere near as much fun as adventuring).

My Pixie loves taking photos at every given opportunity so ... tonight's post is our weekend (mostly) in pictures.

DB dropped her to me at work Friday afternoon, complete with a sushi snack (and one for me). Pixie sulked because she couldn't leave a note for the Minion. She did decide the new assistant in our area would be a worthy substitute. I love that I have colleagues who are pleased to rock up to work to a note saying "thanks for being my new boss minion" rather than being offended!

After she had checked all the stamps, my job was to distract all my colleagues having Friday drinks in the kitchen so the Pixie could sneak in and get a biscuit. This failed for several reasons:

1. The kitchen is tiny and the biscuits were the opposite side to the door.
2. I announced that I was supposed to be distracting everyone.
3. The Pixie is not a sneaky ninja at the best of times.

It did work in her favour though, because she was told off by everyone for only getting one biscuit when she had two hands! Two biscuits is definitely a better deal.

We had cupcakes .... and Sir Hilton of the Paris Yaris was awarded the Order of the Cupcake.

The Pixie taking arty pictures

We went to the movies to see How To Tame a Dragon 2, and I amazed the Pixie by telling her I remembered the first time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were at the movies.

See! I could be a sneaky ninja turtle, Mummy! Or at least a ninja turtle!

We went home fell asleep watching How to Tame a Dragon. The first one. See I can be rebellious. Watching movies out of order!

Saturday we went on a road trip to Brookton. One of our friends is a farmer out there and she took us adventuring.

I thought we could be archaeologists. The Pixie disagreed

Exploring the ruins of one of the original houses
 

Me: Oooh! We can practice being archaeologists.
Pixie: You don't want to be an archaeologist. You want to be a boring lawyer.
Me: That is a bit ...mean. I had a history degree first. So there.
Pixie: Well it is true. You study for 10 years to sit in a court room and listen to people argue. You must really like arguing. The only reason I like persuasive writing is because I get to argue with the teacher.
Me: I liked arguing a lot more before I had children.

She is also a monkey

Pixie was very excited to see three foxes. She was a bit bemused to find out farmers would not think this was as cool as she did.

If Pixies don't eat sheep, neither should foxes

And we found other wildlife to look at ... famers also don't like caterpillars

Pixie: He shall be named Bobilina
Me: Your child naming privileges have been revoked.

We picnicked, we climbed, we explored and the Pixie slept the whole way home! It was an awesome day. I always come home from the farm feeling happy and recharged.

That night we went to a chocolate a board game night. Pixie refused to be on my team and went on Apple's instead. My team won. There is a lesson in that for all you children reading this.

Sunday we had a Guide leader meeting (and Pixie, but she got to have a super awesome breakfast too) and then we went to one of my best friend's graduation party. She is now a nurse. Pixie went as an army doctor ("Because that is what Leo is in Charmed") and I topped off an awesome weekend by finding pink and purple pyjamas with hedgehogs on them. I went as a patient and I had been looking for ones with a "fixing" type slogan, but I fell in love with these. Sooooo much happy!

If you look carefully you can see where I spilt some of the "stool sample" we took as food (aka chocolate mousse with chopped up lollies in it)

Then I got my big girls home from church camp. Such a lovely weekend, spent with wonderful people who remind me how lucky I am to have them in my life.

It's too late Mummy ...

For those of you who read my last post about Pixie's career plans, tonight's post is on Buglet's progression of career goals.

When they tiny my favourite bit is that their plans always included being a mum and a Guide leader as well. In my good moments it is massively reassuring that they want to follow in my footsteps; in my bad moments I worried that this was the only way they thought they would see enough of me! These days they are much more articulate about being happy with my parenting/work/life balance.

My first recollection of Buglet's and job plans was when she was in year 1. They did a series of activities on all the different activities, and every day she came home with things: nurses bag, police officers badge, you know the things. Attempting to be a good parent I was telling her she could be anything she wanted when she grew up, and to prove my point I told her that I was going to be a pirate when I grew up. Buglet looked at me very sadly and said "It's too late for you to be a pirate Mummy. You're already grown up, but you can dress up and pretend to be one if you like". Seriously squashed by the child.

A pirate costume is still one of my favourite dress-ups though, and it is what I wore to a friend's 30th party a couple of years ago when the theme was "what you want to be when you grow up". Pirate costumes are much more fun than lawyer costumes.

Being supportive and making Mummy a parrot to go with her pirate costume :)

For ages Buglet's plan was to learn to be a life guard and that was going to be her job while she was going through uni learning to be a vet. On weekends she was going to teach dance. I love that there is not only goals, there are steps in place of what she was going to do when you are getting to those goals. They do say that a goal is a dream with a date, and think that same concept applies to dreams with a plan.

Late last year I had the revelation that these conversations with Buglet were suddenly real. Not just maybe ... one day ... you can do whatever you want conversations, but actual real conversations that are at the point where she is about to make big decisions. I have already blogged about freaking out over her selecting subjects for upper school. Me, not her; she is ok!

Today I met with her teachers at school and freaked out again. Her social studies teacher (now called "society and environment" just to show I am up with the change in terminology) made me feel better when I was stressing about not pushing her into history just because it is my subject. Massively thankful for comment that I had my head screwed on right, and thankful that this teacher could see through the panic to appreciate that my concern is to support them make their own decisions and not to push them in a direction that I think they should be taking. My parents are very good role models for this, so I am thankful for them too.

Recently she has been thinking about teaching (dance and/or primary school and/or English and/or maths), or physiotherapy, or dance therapy ... I guess only time will tell. Now just to calm down, relax, and remind myself that it will all work out and that there are lots of different pathways to get where you want to go. These are all things I tell other people, now I just need to remind myself.