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?

The MOTH (while putting another mouse bait in the garage): Bastards! They eat them as fast as I put them out.

Me: Do you put them in the same spot so they come back to it again and again?

The MOTH: How can they come back again if they eat the bait? They’re dead.

Me: So maybe they see it, then go back to their mouse house saying “Come on! I know where there’s food!” and the others follow them back to our place. Hold on, can mice even give directions? Probably not. Maybe they give each other the GPS co-ordinates!

The MOTH: *gives odd look*

Me: I can totally see a bunch of mice running across the paddocks to our place with little TomToms on their backs…!! Can’t you? ………What??

The MOTH: You’re an idiot…

NOW he realises?

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This is the bitch that we live with. Piper the Wonderdog.

Or my furbaby as Anja would quite rightly say. We love this silly animal to pieces. The dog I mean

This dog doesn’t think she is a person, she KNOWS she damn well is in a “You better let me in the damn house, biatch! It’s bloody cold out here…..Oh ffs! It’s raining now! Let me IN damnit!” kind of way. She leaves hair everywhere - oh the hair! But that’s labradors for you.

What kind of furbaby do you have? What silly things do they do? Tell me!

I was thinking last night about what a bitch my dog is. We took pity on her for having to stay on the soft, warm mat by the sliding door, inside with the heater on, and let her have a wander through the house. Which was extremely exciting. For her. Me? I was watching House, and therefore not so interested in what was going on IN my house. Until the aftermath…

What did we get for our niceness besides a lot of Labrador smiling, tail wagging and excitement? Hair. Everywhere. Labrador snow. Hence why we keep her on the mat by the sliding door. Duh.

The whole dog and pet thing is a little odd. Some people do more for their dogs than their kids. Australians spend more than 4.5 billion on pet care a year. 4.5 BILLION for fucks sake!
We feed them, we love them, we play ball with them and we hug them.

Some people even provide their pets with acupuncture, physiotherapy, counselling and homeopathy. Wtf is with THAT?? We spend (some of us) inordinate amounts of money on them, in attempts to make their short lives more comfortable. And then, because they have the shorter lifespan, they leave us bereft and heartbroken.

But, it seems after all the heartbreak, we still need a companion whether it be canine or feline, and often march back out there and get ourselves another one and so on ad infinitum. Until we get old and have the shorter lifespan, in which case (some of us) leave all our money and worldly possessions to the one member of our family least likely to give a shit. Or in the case of Piper our lab, lots of shits, but not of the caring kind, more your steaming piles in the backyard kind.

Piper is pretty. She’s a Labrador, and seems to vacillate between being incredibly stupid, and then conversely, smarter than us. Still, she is a blonde I suppose and possibly the canine equivalent of Jessica Simpson. She loves us all to pieces and wants nothing more than to be patted and loved 24 hours a day. And fed. She quite possibly loves food more than us and would eat herself stupid given half a chance, making her a rather typical Labrador.

She leaves hair everywhere, has nibbled our external laundry door so that it needs sanding and repainting, she digs holes in one particular garden bed, and pretends she didn’t, she sometimes barks at nothing - or seems to, and has occasionally toxic breath.

But we love her anyway. Even though she is a crazy bitch, because that makes two of us.

I hate the fact that it is Monday-freakin’-Morning again, and consequently, I must haul my fat ass out of bed at 7.30am, put on office clothes, and appear cheerful and dedicated at the bloody office (aka *the coal pit).

Why do Mondays suck so badly? Why does most of the civilised world hate them? Apparently for some, it is less about Mondays, and more about the excess imbibing they indulged in on the weekend. The sleeping in on Saturdays and Sundays upsets the body clock used to getting up earlier during the week, resulting in a sluggish start on a Monday.

Apparently, one popular solution to Mondayitis is NOT to sleep in on the weekend. Wtf?? Take away the only joy in my life?

One article I read said:
“Weekend sleep-ins were actually found to temporarily reset the body clock, throwing the sleep system out of whack and setting the body up for the Monday blues.” (Sorry, lost the link to that)

And…
“Don’t sleep in on the weekends. As tempting as it seems to catch up with lost sleep, it does come at a price.”

The hell I won’t. Sleep is beautiful. Sleep is wonderful. My bed is warm and cosy and there aren’t any fighting, sullen teenagers in there. Because if there were? That WOULD be totally weird on so many levels.

With me, I don’t think it’s so much about the sleeping bit – I don’t actually sleep in at ALL on Saturdays due to soccer playing teens, and Sunday, I make a concerted effort to be up around 9-9.30. So ok, this second one doesn’t always work so well, but I try.

Thing is, I like my family and my home. I like being home. I have projects I want to do, skills I want to learn, and just no bloody time in which to do any of these.

I want to learn photography – and be more familiar with Photoshop. I want to have a veggie garden and feel I am making some small inroad into being sustainable and achieving something myself. I want time to make my damn Wordpress theme and graphics. I want time to be me.

The MOTH works a 12 hour rotating shift. He often has 3 or 4 days a week home. Mid week. Alone to do whatever he wants uninterrupted (that sounds bad…), of course, it invariably is not the housework.

For God’s sake, I’d like time to keep the house clean without losing my weekend to do it – and I ain’t housekeeper of the year, trust me.

Do I like my workmates? Not so much – probably in very small doses. The work I do? It’s alright. It’s constant all week, and I pretty much enjoy most of it. It’s putting up with these people who ordinarily I’d probably have nothing to do with that drives me a little batty. I enjoy my weekends. Why would I want to come back here to the Pom who thinks, no – he KNOWS, he’s always right, the CFO, who think as a male it is his -given right to talk over the top of a woman, to be rude and click his fingers at me if he requires my attention (needless to say, he’s had a few rude awakenings ;). The same hypocrite that will screw $10 out of our business to benefit himself, but haul over the coals any of us mere mortals for a few ring binder folders costing maybe $2 more than another supplier.

I have to work with them, but I damn well don’t have to like them or be friends with them – hence my poor attendance at Christmas functions.

What is wrong with the system when I have to spend 8-9 hours a day with these people whom I could take or leave, and far less with my family?

There has to be more to life than this. A better work/life balance. Something more than the rat race. Unfortunately though, I am trapped. Like most of Australia, bound by a mortgage, a need for a replacement car sometime this year, the cost of several projects to complete around the house, kids to educate, even a dog to feed.

I really don’t know what the solution is - but I do know I envy those with the guts, balls, whatever, to break away from the rat race to pursue something better - because I have to believe there IS something..

Any suggestion?

If you find your house being invaded by mice looking for somewhere they can live in winter, somewhere they can toast their little mouse feet in front of your heater, eat your food, party and cavort in your walls, and generally just be tiny little, furry, noisy asshats, don’t just think cool, we can get some Ratsak, and poison the hell out of the little suckers, and that will be that.

Because it won’t be.

When they die? They smell. Bad. IN your house. Who knew?

For the last week, we have been walking through pockets of stink in our house. I have sprayed air freshener everywhere. Nothing. Opened windows. Nothing. It’s awful.

And, I am somewhat uncomfortable that our house is now insulated by dead mouse bodies. Although, who knows, it may catch on and become the latest environmentally friendly thing to do, and Kevin Rudd will offer people rebates on their Ratsak purchases.

Next time, what should we do instead? I could go with Veronica’s suggestion of mouse skin blankets, but I don’t know, call me fussy, but it just involves so much effort. Om my part. That’s bad. And I don’t sew. Ever.