The third week

If you are surprised that I am continuing with this blog after three whole weeks you are in the company of many of my friends.....the few that I have told about this blog.

Why have I been so secretive when it is so clearly a public forum? Um, I don't know, I just feel sheepish about all my goals.

Piano -

Practiced and tried to learn how many sharps are in each key. My teacher is pleased. I was given a Bach piece called Minuet 3 to learn today. A Boroque piece that requires the right and left hand to both tell a story at once in an intertwined manner...Getting there....

Salsa -

Nuthin'

Vegetarian Food -

I went to a bookshop to look for a good cookbook. Easy, simple, clear etc. I ended up with 'the vegetarian student cookbook'.

Um, rosti..did know how to do that one but I had forgotten it. Unfortunately by daughter hates potatoes I now realise.

Book-

Two chapters.

This week - For those who want to know more -

Oh dear - I'm losing motivation for the salsa. I got a response from the school I wrote to but they didn't seem very interested and told me I could achieve as much as the time and money I was prepared to commit would let me. I got the idea that I would turn up to a group class, partnerless as husband isn't interested, and start awkwardly jigging around with the large and spotty girl with glasses and then be ignored while everyone else whirls around in a leggy and sexy manner.

I mentioned to my husband that I was wondering if I'd overloaded myself with goals. I looked up and he was looking at me with a smile.

'What?'

"Nothing'.

My friend Kate and I took our daughters to the park. 'Why don't you just learn salsa?', said Kate. 'do you really have to get to competition level?".

"yeah, I dunno'.

I thought I'd look for a sign.

The next morning our new neighbours to whom I have yet to introduce myself, were kind enough to make their presence felt by having loud sex. He came too early apparently but after being yelled at angrily in a broad aussie accent, 'just do it, just do it, just do it', he banged away bravely if inneffectively for quite some time.

I'm not sure if that's a sign or not.

Or just a sign that I should not live in a Victorian terrace anymore.

Sigh.

The second week

Hello,

So. What did I achieve? Well....

Piano:

I have a lovely guy teaching me piano and I'm going for my second lesson today. He tells me he believes he can help me to achieve my goal......and maybe more.

I do have some small history of music that I should share that with you. While I never studied an instrument or learnt music as such I did complete a one year course in musical theatre in 2008 in which I learnt to sing, jazz and tap and a little music theory. The lesson was a good reminder and covered pretty much all the theory that I had left in my head. So - Loving the lessons, on course to achieving my goal, happy.

Salsa :

I contacted Picante Dance on their website and wrote a letter informing them of my goal and asking for their help and whether they thought it was realistic. They haven't replied yet but I'm sure they will.

I told my friend about my Salsa goal and she laughed at my ambition - which has made me more determined. There is one problem however, I plan to conceive a baby in two or three months. I doubt that I can dance Salsa while heavily pregnant and given that in the last pregnancy I had pubic symphisitis I doubt its wise. So - the stakes are even higher. I have to achieve my goal by the end of my first trimester which I am hoping will be in five or six months. do they allow women with rounded tum tums into the public arena in salsa culture? Let's see......

Vegetarian Cooking:

I dug up an old favourite I haven't made in months and my daughter gobbled it up. My meat eating husband saw what was for tea and quickly had a big snack unbeknownst to me while I was putting her to bed. So I thought it all went well.......

Recipe:

Mushrooms, capsicum, zuchini chopped finely (or whatever you fancy)

2 x 400g can of Lentils

potatoes (about three or four)

cumin

salt and pepper to taste

Cook veges in frypan in a small amount of water.

When soft enough add lentils and cumin and stir.

Cut and peel potatoes and boil. Mash

Place veges and lentils in a baking dish

Place mashed potato on the top

Place in oven to warm until ready to serve.

Novel:

I'm actually already up to chapter six and was up to chapter five before I started this blog. I've completed my layout and synopsis and character breakdown etc etc.

I don't think that this disqualifies me from giving myself this challenge as finishing the chapters, editing once or twice and actually finding an agent is still a really big deal. I completed one chapter this week.

The story of my Piano - For those who want to know more.

My husband is a very kind and considerate man and is very good at buying generous and well thought out presents. Unfortunately this birthday he completely screwed up.

I have been saying for the past five years that if I don't have a piano by the time I'm forty I want one and I want to learn to play. He did have a look around for me and told me that they were all quite expensive and given that we live in a rented home that it probably wasn't a good idea. I conceded this but stated that I would like a keyboard so I could 'skill up' and play nursery rhymes with my two year old. Around the same time I was also complaining about the many old and varied computers we have around the house. I didn't like what we could and couldn't do on them. I hated that I had to take down the noisy and rickety attic stairs to access our table top computer, I hated that the old mac was so out of date it couldn't even open hotmail properly, I hated that the laptop he'd bought for trading on was not being put to good use and didn't have word or good internet access. I hated it all. He said, 'would you like me to buy you a laptop?"

'NO', I said. (with great vehemence and very clearly I thought).

The day of my birthday came ( it followed the week of the surprise weekend with a bunch of my friends in a lakehouse that my husband had kindly organised) and I was seated in bed about to receive my present. My daughter was brought in to witness the great opening and my husband proudly pulled from underneath the bed - a laptop.

My face dropped and.....I started to cry.

'I was hoping for a keyboard", I said.

The atmosphere was awkward, we were all embarrased, we wern't looking at each other....and then my husband happily started downloading software and music from itunes.

I lost it.

The weekend after, without discussing finances or any such thing I went off to buy myself a keyboard. I had the keyboard, the amp, the stool and other what not all loaded up in front of the checkout and was wandering around the store until they got to me.

'STOP", I yelled out.

'I'll take that'. I was pointing to a darky and shiny upright real live piano.

'um, alright', said the salesguy. I'd complained my story to him already.

I rushed off to the bank and came back with three thousand dollars in cash, (it was reduced for the end of financial year clearance) and booked a delivery for thursday.

I didn't tell my husband.

I sweated, I lay awake at night, I had stomach cramp......

finally, the day before it was due to arrive I decided having him walk in to an expensive 'surprise' was not a good idea.

I came clean. He got cross....then laughed....and last weekend he and Imogen were happily banging away on the piano while I made a vegetarian casserole.

Nice.

Moral of the story - I absolutely refuse to forego things I really want and sit in animosity. I feel great. We're all happy. End of story.....except for the lessons and the challenge in which I believe there is still a tale to tell.....

Best wishes

Susannah

My Fortieth Year - My First Post

Hello there,

I have set myself the following challenges to achieve in my fortieth year. They are difficult and challenging but are things that I've always wanted to do.

The Challenges:

To learn to play the piano. I will learn to the point where I can give a concert to my friends on my 41 st birthday. The music must include a classical piece, a jazz piece that I sing along to, a musical theatre piece that I sing along to and more.

To complete my first novel and to get a literary agent.

To learn Salsa and participate in a competition.

To learn how to cook interesting and yummy vegan and vegetarian recipes.

Conceive a baby.

I need to do something towards achieving these goals every week and I will post my attempts and exploits once a week. (maybe not about the conception bit). :)

NOW - I have my very first piano lesson at 3pm today, in half an hour. Check me out next week to hear how I went and also the story of how I bought my piano against all odds. I will have a new recipe that you can check out and will tell you how I went in my search for a salsa teacher to take me through to my goal.

Wish me luck. Best wishes.

Susannah :)

An Explanation as to Why - For Those Who Want More......

Because:

I am forty years old. If you had told me at any point prior to now that I would eventually be forty I would have scoffed at you, as anyone who has never been forty before does scoff. As do people who have never been thirty. As, in fact, do people who have never reached the age of ten.

So, here I am, at the age of forty, coming to the realisation that I need to 'do something'.

Many people who are forty are too busy to 'do something' with their fortieth year as they have work commitments, children, spouses and creaky joints to take care of. But I have had a slow realisation that over the last few years that I have 'lost myself'. I am writing this blog to set myself the challenge of re-setting my mentality to find myself again and to also start a new chapter.

I suppose what I need to identify to you then, firstly, is who I am and so therefore who was lost in the first place. I will reveal many aspects of myself over the next year but in this first post I will summarise who I am/was by making a list of what was important to me in the time before I became lost.

I was raised as a vegan, when I left home I became a vegetarian who tried to maintain a strong connection to vegan sensibilities and lifestyle.

I was a theatre nerd. I worked in professional and independant theatre and completed my university studies in Theatre Performance.

I was actively creative - I wrote, I sang, I danced, I directed, I was silly.

I learnt stuff. I took lessons in things and enjoyed learning.

I was sociable and active.

Where I went Wrong:

At some point around the age of thirty four I was lost. I was so lost that I was scrabbling around trying to get a foothold and I ended up being more lost. By the ages of thirty five and thirty six I had seemed to forget completely who I was. This is despite being in a wonderful relationship with a lovely man who I married in my thirty fifth year, to whom I am still happily married. How is it possible that I could get so lost and yet simultaneously have achieved one of my dreams - to find a lovely partner and settle down?

One of my guesses is that it was a combination of things: trying to please and ending up lazy in my habits, being very tired from my job as a teacher and feeling I didn't have the energy to do the things I used to do, being distressed from negative dynamics at work and losing my personal confidence and ability to be assertive and self nurturing, not having anyone who I felt was a true friend apart from my husband - who was the same person who had to put up with all of the above.

Hmmmmmmm.

If I was not back on the road to recovery I would not be able to even conceive of writing the blog, I would have been too overburdened by life. But I am returning to myself to the point where I want to set myself a couple of challenges, here in my fortieth year, to give myself back to me and so that I can remember to never lose myself again.

These challenges need to be tough and they need to be things that I have always dreamed of achieving.

How I Started To Find Myself Again:

Not all of the ways I started to find myself again were easy or even fun, but they set me back on a path where I could see myself in the distance and where I was forced to reconnect with my heart and my body.

I left my job.

I had a baby.

I went to the gym two or three times a week with a strong focus on yoga.

I lost my beloved Mum too too early.

So now: to the challenges that I have decided to set myself.

Wish Me Luck

Ok, so here I am, I've written my first post and really committed myself to these difficult challenges. I will of course always be looking after the number ones in my life during all of this - My baby girl, My beloved husband - and ME. :)

Susannah :)