We have a largish house. That’s not a bragging thing, thats just by way of explaining the size of the pergola/awning/what-ever-you-call-it-in-other-countries (veranda?) we want built.

The house is a C shape basically, and we pretty much want to fill in the ‘C’, plus a bit more, with this roofed structure that we can sit out under in the summer, and freeze our body parts off under in winter and as our fingers slowly drop off, we can declare loudly how glad fucking we are to have it and wasn’t it a grand idea…

So it’s all good, until we realise we need quotes. Oh. My. God. The quoting thing. I hate it. MOTH hates it.

Why? Because all the tradeys we have had around our place for various quotes over the last couple of years have pretty much been dickheads. Idiots. Asshats. You call to book them to quote? They don’t turn up. They don’t ring back, they don’t DO…anything. It’s SO hard to give them work and PAY them for it! If they do a job, you can bet they leave a godawful mess behind.

But we want our pergola, so we finally get 3 dudes to quote.

Dude 1. Nice guy from large company, measures up, provides computer generated drawings, spends time deciding on stuff with us in his showroom. But…..we expect him to be pricey due to the overheads large companies have - but it ends up being competitive. The dog likes him too - this is important.

Dude 2. Local company. Measures up, quotes on the spot. HAS THE CHEAPEST PRICE - booyah!!!!!! And? The dog likes him.

Dude 3. Larger company. Didn’t like him when I rang to ask for a quote. Jumped down my throat on the phone saying “I don’t come out of hours, you know!” Screw you bud, I didn’t ask you to.

So, he turns up anyway. The dog doesn’t like him, and his quote ends up being $5,000 more than Dude 2, and $4,000 more than Dude 1. Holy hell. How does THAT work?

Dude 3 called me yesterday (at 8.00 freakin’ am!) to see how we found his quote. I told him he’s way out of the ballpark in comparison to everyone else. He asked who the other quoters were. I wouldn’t tell him and said “I don’t think that’s either relevant, or any of your business. Shouldn’t you be more concerned with your pricing structure given it is so out of whack with everyone else?”.

Note: Never call me in the morning. I am NOT nice before at least 10.00am and generally don’t like anyone. Ask my kids.

Anyway, he pretty much hung up on me. I chuckled and thought see you dickhead.

I knew the dog was a good judge of character. She pretty much likes everyone. But if she doesn’t like a person, you can pretty much bet it’s with good reason.

Had any good experiences with tradesmen? Got an insight into their asshatty behaviours?

I can’t blog about anything at the moment, because I realise now after reading this post at Red’s, I have too much shit in my head at the moment, and my brain wants to explode and I don’t want to let it, and therefore it’s bloody hard to write a coherent blog post.

So there you have it. I am certifiable. Today, at least. Tomorrow? Who knows?

Cool, huh?

How do you deal with crap like that? Or are you totally together and awesome all the time? If you are, don’t tell me because I will most likely call you a freak and hate you. Seriously, though, how does one clear the cobwebs?

P.S. I will get back to answewring comments. One day. I’m slack like that. So…deal with it I guess. Or not as the case may be.

So my son, Spawn the Elder, has had an emotional week or two. As have I. There is nothing quite like having your teenage son literally crying on your lap, well half on your lap because he is over 6′2″ tall and I am 5′3″, despairing anything good is ever going to happen in his life.

Maybe it’s my Irish ancestry. Being born in Belfast, perhaps I have inherited that melancholy Irish heritage and passed it on. I am partial to a nice potato…

Anyways, thank you to everyone that expressed concern for him. It was greatly appreciated (by me at least, as he’d be horrified if he thought I had posted about him).

Our school has been abso-fucking-lutely brilliant. His year coordinator talked to me for ages, the vice principal called, all his teachers were advised of the situation within a couple of hours, and he was made a priority booking with the school counselor (the spawn that is, not the vice principal), and then was quickly booked into see our GP.

So the boy has talked his head off to a few people, and the general consensus is that he isn’t suffering from depression, but that he needs to work on a few coping skills. He has issues with some of the kids at school because he is more mature than the average 16 year old. Therefore, he can’t be bothered with the crap they spout, and although this isn’t a bad thing, it can serve to make him feel left out and thinking there is something wrong with him. As opposed to just recognising that some of the guys at school are nothing more than raving dickheads. As most 16 year olds are.

He is feeling much brighter however, and needless to say the stronger smell of teen spirit is like nirvana to me (heh, pardon the pun).

I’m telling you folks, this parenting gig gets exponentially harder when they are teenagers.

It sucks, and although I love my boys to pieces, and they don’t get into any trouble, do pretty well at school, have awesome senses of humour, and are generally pretty decent to hang around with….at the moment, I’d give it up in a heartbeat to be back when they were 1 and 3 rather than 14 and 16, because that era? Was a piece of cake compared to this shit.

What would you prefer, or think you would prefer? Toddler hell, or teenage angst??

Also, while we were going through this, I did a bit of research into depression in kids, and uncovered quite a lot of info. I’m thinking of doing a post covering it all in case anyone else is ambushed like me.

Do you think that would be useful??

Australia has lost another wonderful woman to breast cancer with the passing of Jane McGrath, wife of ex-Australian Test Cricketer Glenn McGrath and mother to James and Holly, this morning.

Image courtesy of news.com.au

This news is just devastating to us Aussies who have watched Jane’s long battle with cancer over the last 11 years, and been amazed at her courage, dignity and will to live. Not only was she beautiful, but she was articulate, funny, and a tremendous example of humility and concern for others.

Her compassion for others was exemplified by the founding  of the McGrath Foundation which had two clear aims  “to raise money to place McGrath Breast Care Nurses in hospitals throughout rural and regional Australia as well as educating young women to become ‘breast aware’. ”

The Foundation has no doubt brought comfort to many, and saved other lives through early detection of breast cancer and is a tribute to Jane’s tenacity and determination to beat the disease not only for herself, but all mothers, sisters, aunts, and daughters.

If you don’t do anything else today, do one thing. Go here and pay tribute to Jane in a way that I believe she and Glenn would want.

RIP Jane, you are an inspiration to us all, and will be sorely and sadly missed.

So, it’s taken about 3 months, but I’ve finally been tagged for a meme. Tagged in fact, by Naomi. Yeah, thanks for that dude.

And to think I’d really liked you. Up till now. Bwahahaha!

Expect revenge, when you least expect it, is all I’m saying.

So, the meme goes like this:

* Write a six-word memoir. Okkkkkkkkkk……

* Post it to your blog including a visual illustration if you would like. Shit, you mean I have to like trawl the net for a picture, or open Photoshop? On a Sunday morning? Far out! (Far OUT? Wtf? I should totally be ‘turning on, tuning in and dropping out using phrases like that, man)

* Link to the person who tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogsphere. That’s you again Naomi! In case like you know, you’d forgotten or something…

* Tag 5 more blogs with links (or however many people you feel like annoying). I think nearly everyone has done it by now? And there’s no one left in the entire blogosphere to choose…..aahhh I know someone - someone awesome, too! *jig* *jig*

* Don’t forget to leave a comment in the tagged blogs with an invitation to play. Right, so trawl about after everyone stalking them until they do what I say. Nothing different to parenting teenage sons there…

So after much thought, my six word memoir is as follows:

Loving heart, slightly bruised, never broken.

As for who to tag… well I have chosen the lovely, determined, Fleat, my almost-but-not-quite-just-because-we-both-live-in-Sydney neighbour. She’s also an awesome cook, so you should check out the recipes she posts occasionally - yummo! AND she just went and saw Gordon Ramsey. In person. For real. For this, I hate her, because she didn’t take me.

So, go see her here. NOW!