Ramble – Like A Currently Post, Only More Panicked

Do you know what I was doing this time last year?  Walking through the streets of Rome with our backpacks weighing us down but our hearts as light as feathers.  We had woken up at dawns crack, eaten a wonderfully delicious pastry, washed it down with a caffe while standing at the bar before we missioned to make the trek from Trastevere back to the Roma Termini to catch our train to Florence.  Only we got so confused about the train situation that Seth ended up running away from me to find the right train, while I hobbled behind him with a messed up knee, tears streaming down my face and gelato streaming down my arm.

OK, that’s not the memory that I thought would pop up for today, in fact this day was probably our lowest point for the whole trip.  You can read about why here – aside from the missing the train story it was also because our accommodation was on the other side of Florence, Seth kept mumbling about this being the stupidest thing we’ve ever done and we had no internet connection to get in touch with the hosts – like a bunch of travel novices – which we totally were.

(I put all the links to everything we did in this post, in case you want to feel an intense calling to visit Italy.)

But all that aside, it’s still one of the highlights of our trip.  We talk about missing that train as often as we do seeing the Colosseum for the first time.  Which was freaking magical by the way.  That whole trip was guys.  I think about it so often.  It was one of the best experiences I have ever had in my whole entire life.  I can’t actually explain in words what it felt like to explore those cities, smell that Jasmine that was literally everywhere and see things in real life that I had only seen in magazines.  And all with the guy that knows me inside out.  My favourite travel buddy.  (It’s Seth in case you’re confused there)

And now we’re about to set out on a whole new adventure.  One around our very own country.  Which ashamedly, I don’t know as well as I now know Italy.  Before I started really planning our itinerary I couldn’t even name 5 places that you should see in South Africa aside from the typical spots like the Kruger, or like, um, Cape Town.  Which we’ve seen every day for the past 31 years.

The gelato before it melted all the way down my arm

I’ll do a proper Currently post just on camper progress another day.  When I don’t feel like the World is slowly crashing down on me.  Jeepers Cindy, dramatic much?  Well, yeah, maybe, but it is what it is yo.  And that’s how I feel right now so shut up Cindy and take your judgement elsewhere.  Great.  Now I’m talking to myself.  This is not going to end well.

The thing is usually I handle stress fairly well.  Although when I said that to Seth he snort-laughed in my face.  Maybe I thought I handle it better than I do.  Either way, my body seems to be in full freak out mode.  How do I know?  When about a month ago, when I thought I was pregnant, I went to the Doc to chat over a few things.  One of those things was this weird feeling in my throat.  It’s hard to explain.  But it feels like my tonsils are so swollen that my actual throat is closed – even though it isn’t.  It’s hard to swallow and I constantly feel like I’m being strangled.

Yes.  I know, it’s hella weird.  Anyway, after a check down my throat and a few carefully worded questions about my current stage of life we realised it was stress.  After finding out I wasn’t actually pregnant – it magically went away.  But now…  Now it’s back with such vengeance that I actually feel like ripping my throat out might be better than what’s going on in there right now.

But in order to just clarify my own head and get a grip on things, I thought I’d list the things that we are currently doing, planning and plotting that is not keeping me awake, but closing my throat up…

1. Finding a lovely, reliable family to live in our house
2. Finding a lovely family to look after our dogs (I think we have hope on this one – I’ll keep you posted)
3. Organising a massive going away party that doubles as all three kids birthday parties this Saturday. I’ve planned nothing and I’m slowly starting to freak the heck out.  I’m outsourcing though – it should be OK.
4. It might rain on Saturday and we have about 100 odd people coming to our house over the course of the afternoon.
5. We have to get Knox into OT which we are starting today to ensure that he is sorted by the time we leave in the camper and that we know how to help him while we’re away.  Pressure.
6. Work – all the work in the world.  It doesn’t stop.
7. Sick Kyla – she is currently fighting an infection in a newly growing tooth – she has to have antibiotics which sucks.
8. Sorting out the school situation for the camper.  Still seriously in progress on this one.  Well, to be clear, I haven’t even started
9. Getting the itinerary sorted.  We’re stuck in a catch 22 here.  We can’t leave until someone rents our house.  Which means that I am too scared to book any accommodation in case we can’t leave.  I don’t need the hassle of cancelling and refunds and all that crap.  It’s freaking me out a bit that we don’t have a full plan here.
10. I have a few sponsored posts that I need to get out this week that I haven’t started yet.  My eye is twitching just thinking about it.
11. And then there’s the actual camper who is now working and we have been working hard on kitting out.  But it’s not even close to done.  There are so many little bits and pieces that we need to do that it’s hard to figure out which one to start with.  Like beds, curtains, actual building of the interior, painting.  The list is flipping endless.
12. Playdates.  I know this sounds terrible but I honestly hate playdates.  Does that make me a bad person?  It’s just that our lives are so busy and there is so much homework that squeezing in a play date in an already insanely busy week actually makes my stomach sore.  I just can’t even try and fit that into my brain.  But so many people can’t make the party and my kids want to see them, so I’m going to have to suck it up and make it work.
13. Packing – I haven’t started yet.  The idea is that once the party is over, then I’ll start with full gusto.  But it’s still always at the back of my mind.  That I haven’t even started yet and we have like, 40 days to go.
14. Friends and family.  It’s starting to become insanely clear that we are running out of time to see the people we want to see.  But with the amount of work that we still need to do we can’t dedicate any time on the weekends to do it aside from a Friday night.  And there are only so many Friday nights until we go.

Phew.  That’s about it.  I think.  Excluding things like, what to pack, all the things we still have to buy (solar and whatnot) and just getting through the usual admin of life.

I’m exhausted.