Goodbye Naughties. Hello Tennies!

Right, so the naughties are gone, and to be honest? It’s been one hell of a set of 10.

What a tumultuous decade it has been for me. Great things have happened. Bad things have happened, and ultimately my life has been shaped in ways I would have never expected back in 1999. Wow. 1999 feels like a lifetime ago.

10 years ago I would never have expected that in the following decade I would have 3 kids, buy 2 houses, separate from my wife, travel to the USA for a year, return to Australia to find a new life with a gorgeous wonderful woman and then settle back into the house that I originally bought 5 years earlier.

But that’s what has happened. Who says 10 years go fast when you can do that many things. The Mick of 1999 feels like another person, but so does the Mick of 2004 and the Mick of 2006. I feel like I have evolved so many times in the last 10 years but I have to remind myself of the changes that I have been through.

I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, beit good or bad. You can’t lament over the bad times in your life, but you are allowed to bask in the good times. I am a definite proponent of the ‘glass half full’ theory in life. Bad shit is going to happen all the time, but you can’t dwell on it. Similarly, you can’t change it. You can only use it to your advantage, because Yes people, every cloud DOES have a silver lining. As corny as it is, everyone can find something good out of a bad situation. It may not be straight away, but eventually you’ll find it. As small as it may seem.

Everyone thinks of their New Years resolutions at this time of year. There’s the obligatory promises of less food, more reading, less TV, more gardening, but what about just wanting more of the same? What if our attempts at changing our lives are just putting more pressure on ourselves to change what is probably already working. Of course we all change, but that change happens everyday, not on January 1st.

One thing that I would like to do is blog more. I was pretty lacklustre in the blog-o-sphere last year as can be seen from these hastily compiled statistics:

The graph above show that my 2009 blogging was pathetic. So much so that I had 2 blog free months, which was a first in my 6 years of blogging. Time to pick up my game!

I hope your year has started well, and that any ambitions, goals or dreams you have are fulfilled in the next set of 365.

Time for me to get off my arse and actually make things happen!

Yo-Yo Mick.

No, I’m not the famous cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, but I do feel like a yo-yo lately.

LaLa has already commented that my moods seem to go up and down like one and internally (and sometimes externally) it is exactly what happens.

DOWN: Was missing LaLa like crazy last week after 3 weeks apart and we ended up having a silly argument.

UP: Had a great weekend with LaLa. Recharged the internal and relationship batteries and forgot about any problems. Went to a wedding, sucked down french champagne, caviar and lobster. YUMS!

Me and Pinchy

DOWN: Back to work. Home Loan consolidation rejected. Repetitive actions causing mental RSI.

UP: Boys sleep over. Had a fun night and felt like I was Dad of the Year.

DOWN: Back to work grind. Find out that the one time I get a chance for a trip at work to do training has been cancelled because “people” want to get off Lotus Notes and switch to Microcrap. Frustrated and sick of lack of support.

I hate these mood swings too. I feel like I just can’t get into a good rhythm right now. At least there is a 4 day weekend coming up, which will be bloody FANTASTIC. Bring on the chocolate I say!

Routine or Rut

Ok girls and boys, please play this game with me.

I am going to give you some scenarios and you have to tell me whether I am in a rut or it is a routine

1. My week is almost completely planned out from Monday to Saturday. From jams to sport to kids to gigs. Whilst I don’t mind being busy, sometimes it feels like I am not stopping and the weeks are just slipping by.
2. I don’t eat very well because I’m hardly home and I don’t bother buying fresh food very often because it goes off before I eat it. Hence my diet is pretty shit and includes too much take-away junk and not enough vegies.

3.  I spend most of my spare time online. Either reading blogs, facebooking, downloading torrents or chatting. I know I spend too much time doing it and there are probably more productive things to do, but I just don’t know what. I also stay up too late doing these things and feel tired most mornings.

4. My body is telling me to look after it. Whether it’s my dodgy knee, ankle, toe or love handles, I feel like I am not completely fit and I am lacking the motivation to look after myself better.

5. I am living pay to pay, which is something I am used to, but should I budget better? Should I look at trying to save money for a rainy day or a holiday? I am useless at budgets and never stick to them, and I am not in dire straits money wise, but I don’t like having to worry about how much I can spend each fortnight/month.

6. My band is playing quite a lot of gigs and it’s been really good money-wise and great fun, but when you have a gig almost every single Friday or Saturday night and sometimes both, I find I have less time for socialising with friends, less time with the kids and less time with LaLa. It’s hard to scale it back as I want to be in the band and we are really getting a good following in Canberra, but maybe I should be trying to encourage the band to only play every 2nd weekend?

7. Because of No. 6 I find I have not been spending as much time with the kids as I would like. I see them at least once a week when they stay over, but I have not had them stay over on a weekend for a while now. They seem to be ok with it and have not said anything, and neither has the ex, but I know that I have not been pulling my weight. It worries me a little that the kids are getting too used to not seeing me so much and I worry about that.

8. Work is dull. It’s pretty much the same thing day in and day out and my motivation to work is about as big as the motivation to pull my toenails off. There is always the possibility or training and project work coming up which is keeping the fire alive, but only barely. I have been considering looking around for other work, but really don’t want to go through the hassle of job applications/interviews.

Wow…Routine or Rut has turned into a saga about things I am unhappy with in my life.

The thing is, I am not really unhappy at all. I have beautiful kids, a beautiful girl, a loving family and good friends. I earn enough money to live ok, I am in a successful band and I am good at my job and my colleagues like me.

Sometimes I just feel like the weeks are ticking by and I am not achieving much. I am constantly hanging for the weekends or for my next holiday. To me, that spells RUT.

Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading. Any ideas on how to keep things interesting and not get stuck in the day to day grind?

The Bass of Life

I was in a club in Kingston the other week after a band gig.

I was tired and a little inebriated and just watching the punters as they milled around at 3.30am while I waited until I was sober enough to drive home.

A lady, probably around 40 years of age that had been dancing with her friends previously, suddenly came up to me and said, “You know, you really should smile. There’s nothing so bad in life that you can’t smile every single day”.

Now, it’s not that I was sad or upset or even mopey. I was just buggered and a little bored, but the fact that she came up and said that DID make me smile. I like it when strangers make an effort to talk to someone, even just to say a line that was probably inspired by the raspberry vodkas she was having. People really should interact more instead of that silence we seem to have in a lift with someone, or in a shopping queue, or at a bus stop.

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This is a strange time of year.

On one hand, it goes fast because, hell TIME GOES FAST, as is proven as we get older. Years just tick by like they are days.

On the other hand, these last few weeks have been crawling along, and of course, because Christmas is around the corner, time seems to stand still because TIME DOES NOT WANT YOU TO HAVE A HOLIDAY.

Ahem..

So, I did most of my Chrissy shopping last weekend and thank you to Mr. Internet I have done a lot more which should be arriving in the lovely post this week.

I am still jamming with my band, and still seeing the kids when I can, but I feel that I have been too busy of late to really spend quality time with them. Will hopefully make up for that over the Christmas break.

I feel like I haven’t really stopped in the last few months. I’m hardly at home, and when I am, it is usually late at night when I should be sleeping. Thus, I never get my 8 1/2 hrs and I feel crabby in the morning.

Put that on repeat and it’s my life!

Maybe I need to make my life simpler. Summer is a good time of year to do that.

I was thinking about priorities yesterday and I think I have had problems with maintaining the right priorities in life before.

I probably should look at that a little closer.

Bah..I dunno. Keeping the balance is the key to everything and I think I do ok with it, but sometimes it is impossible to keep everyone happy.

Just got to keep on keeping on and move to the Bass of Life.

Oh…and don’t forget to smile