24 hours to go….

I am so proud of myself for surviving 14 days of quarantine! 14 days with no fresh air, 14 days (mostly) of Sultana Bran and now I’ll never have to eat it again (unless I want too!)

Full disclosure I ordered Uber Eats for 2 out of my 3 meals yesterday…..

Quite a few people have expressed that they will miss my daily quarantine updates and I can’t thank you enough for your support and love!!! I will try and continue blogging as I remain unemployed but to tide you over until I log on again I’ve collated my favourite archived blogs.

Yes I got so bored during quarantine that I re-read my own blog but I’ve got to say it was really fun re living certain memories and remembering the person I was all those years ago and feeling proud at how much I’ve grown since then (there was also a lot of cringing, I was really so sadly and desperately single for so long…..)

So, if like me you are unemployed, stuck in quarantine or just want to re live the hot mess my life used to be please read and enjoy

xx

1. For the dedicated readers who would want to start at the beginning:
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/hello-world/
2. For those who may remember I had a very tempestuous relationship with my first set of housemates in London. One of the main offenders was a Polish man named Adam who was bald and I used to get into fights with him every morning I had to wash my hair because I took too long in the shower. I mean, he wasn’t wrong but also he was BALD so like why did he need 20 mins in the shower in the morning????? Anyway the breaking point came when he arrived back from a trip to Poland…..
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/things/
3. Mum still claims this is one of the best presents she ever got. Cheapest present ever!
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/happy-birthday-ma/
4. Please read if you’ve ever wondered what I meant when I said I suffered from severe middle child syndrome
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2014/05/22/throw-back-thursdays-a-k-a-an-impromptu-therapy-session/
5. Hey guys remember that time I met Robin Williams
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/the-greatest-day/
6. Is now a good time to confess that the whole “head butted on the dance floor” story was actually a lie…….(for anyone who doesn’t know the real story….maybe I will blog about it one day)
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/yolo/
7. Please enjoy the Traffic Offenders series a.k.a that time I got arrested with a DUI and then had to attend traffic offenders school to get out of losing my license
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2014/11/
8. Interesting to see my achievements and yearly goals have actually not changed too much since 2015
   • https://whensaturnreturns.wordpress.com/2015/01/

Food is Life

Yesterday was all about food. I’ve been enjoying the starch bomb combo that is a savory roll for lunch and shepards pie for dinner:

Never enough sauce….

And then I got an additional delivery from the treats fairy……

The rhubarb pie in the middle was the star of my day

In my post pie sugar coma I came up with a list of places I will be visiting as soon as I get outta here:

Gelato Messina (obvs)

Lorraine’s Patissere (this is where the rhubarb pie came from and apparently there was a Black Forest Eclair left on the shelf…)

Black Star Pastry (I will be purchasing a smorgasboard of goods)

Yum Cha (Rhodes is the only place that still does the carts!)

Korean Fried Chicken from anywhere around Strathfield Station

Cappucino made with Bonsoy

Proper Thai food (probably from Newtown but open to suggestions since it’s been a while)

A proper McDonald’s Apple Pie (the Canadian ones are baked. BAKED. It was outrageous and disgusting)

Thick cut fruit toast (I could not find this anywhere in Vancouver!)

Where else should I go?

Second Swab….

Was not as traumatic as the first. Maybe my nostrils were more prepared for the assault this time but I’m just glad it’s over! Pending results I should be getting out by Sunday which is great because our cereal has gone back to Sultana Bran and while I appreciate its ability to keep me regular I don’t know how much more of it I can eat.

This experience has reignited a newfound love for rice pudding. It’s been the unsung hero of every quarantine dinner.

The overwhelmingly positive response to my last post caused an unprecedented surge of confidence in my mothering skills propelling me to do the unthinkable.

That’s right….

I opened the sewing kit!

Does anyone know that the silver thing is?

It may have taken me two episodes of Great British Bake Off but I did it. I sewed the button back onto my shirt

I will not show any pictures of the back because we all know that’s going to give away the fact I don’t know what I’m doing

I’m pretty proud of my achievement especially because I didn’t end up following any Youtube tutorials as I had originally planned too, I did it all off my own skill and memory of being taught how to do this in primary school.

So even if I fail at all the other pointers I listed in yesterdays post at least I know for sure that I’ll be able to sew buttons back onto shirts for my son and that’s providing something!

Please continue showering me with praise as I’d love to gain enough momentum to propel me towards opening (and possibly even attempting) the crochet kit.

Half Way There!

Actually probably slightly more than half way there with quarantine but I am officially in week 20 of my pregnancy which means I’m half way through baby!

Felt cute, unlikely to delete ever

To avoid descending into a panic of “I STILL HAVE SO MUCH TO LEARN AND ONLY HAVE 20 WEEKS LEFT TO DO IT” I’ve decided to send my brain in the opposite direction and instead compile a guideline of parental tips I’ve gleaned from my friends, family and many many hours of watching Netflix:

1. Don’t trust rich people who want to do stuff for your kid consequence free. It’s suspicious and weird. If it sounds too good to be true then it most definitely is. Essential viewing includes:
   • Jeffrey Epstein Doco (always question a billionaire that wants to pay for your children to go on an all expenses paid vacation but you’re not invited)
   • Abducted In Plain Sight (always question a grown man that says his therapist recommend he share a bed with your children. Like HONESTLY I mean I shouldn’t even have to say this one its common fucking sense. In fact I might just rewatch this entire documentary as a reminder of everything you definitely should not do when raising children.)
   • Leaving Neverland (just because someone is a mega huge superstar doesn’t mean they don’t have bad intentions with your kids. Don’t get starstruck and again don’t let your child share a bedroom with a strange man even if it is in a 5 Star Hotel and even if that man is responsible for starting a cultural phenomenon)

2. Just because your Dad supports the Melbourne Demons doesn’t mean you have to.

• I’m not trying to raise a masochist here. Although supporting the Dee’s will set him up from a young age to learn how to handle constant and bitter disappointment. Maybe it will teach him how to lose gracefully?

3. You have to find the right balance of alternately smothering and neglecting your child so they have the right balance of entitlement and independence. Main example is:

• Indian Matchmaking (push too hard and you end up with an Aparna, smother too much and you end up with an Akshay. Aim for a balance and a Nadia is where you’ll hopefully land)

4. You need to work actively from a young age to counteract the ingrained racism that exists in Australian culture

• While Australians may not be actively and in your face racist there’s a more casual off the cuff racism that will catch you off guard in your day to day that can often be more pernicious.
• A lot of this racism stems from misinformation, miseducation and lack of cultural integration. Having lived in 3 different countries outside of Oz I can hands down say we are the worst at accurately representing our diversity in our cultural identity. Any TV show aired on any of our national networks is just a screen full of white faces. All our major politicians are white. Even everyone on the radio is white. I think they only allowed a brown family onto Neighbours a few years ago……
• I’m going to have to find a way to adequately prepare my son for a lifetime of answering the question ” BUT WHERE ARE YOU FROM?”

4. Strive to provide you with 3 meals a day that are far more delicious and nutritious than this:

Although I was pretty excited about the Special K and whaaaattt FULL SIZE MARS BAR!!!!

6. No matter what you do and how you turn out I guess I have to love you unconditionally.

• I’m not sure how this works but apparently it comes naturally.

Meat Pie Monday

The only upside of a repeat menu is knowing that on Monday’s we get meat pies:

Celebrating the return of Sultana Bran as well!

I am concerned that the quality has gone down from a Herbet Adam’s last week to a Mrs Macs today….. it doesn’t bode well for things to come. Hopefully I’ll be released before next Monday otherwise i’ll probably be staring down at a 4 Twenty and that would just be a really sad end to my quarantine experience.

On a more positive note we did receive a new activity book today!

This display is making my unopened crochet kit very nervous

While I’m looking forward to embarking on a fresh activity I can’t help but feel like somewhat of a failure for the pathetic progress I made on the puzle book from last week:

Just two examples of attempted and failed puzzle attempts

At first glance I thought I’d nail Skyscrapers but actually it’s really hard

I genuinely don’t understand the rules for this one. Please explain/send help

If I can’t wrap my head around these puzzles how am I ever going to help my kid with their homework?? How am I going to look them in the eyes and expect them to listen to me and respect my opinions if I can’t even follow the rules of the god damn Kropki?????

I’m just praying there is no direct correlation between mother’s who can’t finish sudoku’s and how it causes their son’s to fail at life.

Weekend Wrap Up

I took a break from writing because I got lazy. It’s pretty easy in quarantine to sleep in a few hours too long for just one day and before you know it you’re not getting out of bed until midday, only doing yoga once a day instead of twice and not showering until you can smell your own B.O.

I’m just going to put it down to “weekend vibes”. In the spirit of weekend relaxation I allowed myself an Uber Eats order but it went horribly wrong when Oporto’s forgot to put my Prego burger INTO MY BAG. Even though the meals aren’t too bad here they are starting to get monotonous which is why I was so excited for my treat. Case and point these are the meals I received over the last 3 days:

Note that the cereal has changed from Sultana Bran to Nutrigrain this week and I am not happy about it

Other weekend achievements involved:

• Eventually receiving my missing burger
• Changing the bedding to fresh sheets provided by the hotel. The sheets were delivered at a moment of peak laziness so I did debate if I even needed to change them or if I could just keep the nicely tucked ones on for another week…….
• Finished the final season of Schitt’s Creek
• Started watching Unsolved Mysteries
• Learning that Ned Flanders was a PHARMACIST before he opened the Leftorium!
• Felt the baby kicking for the first time!

But I think the true pinnacle of the weekend was when I maturely decided to be healthy and just eat my side salad that came with my dinner instead of ordering take out again because I did not fancy eating the gloopy risotto that was served for the main

Divine intervention

But then my sleeve got caught on a shelf causing quite the spill. I took it as a sign from the lord of quarantine that I should just order the Pad Thai I was craving all day.

On a side note trying to clean up spilt lentils and quinoa with no dust pan or vacuum is really hard.

I’ll just call reception about it in the morning……

Post Sima Depresion

Since I finished the last episode of Indian Matchmaking last night I haven’t really known what to do with myself…..

I spent a few good hours on twitter discussing Jamie’s BiP meltdown but then I fell back into a Sima free stupor.

I tried my usual tropes of watching back to back episodes of The Great British and Australian bake offs, Come Dine with Me (regular AND couples edition) and The Simpsons but I fear until I find my next reality tv obsession I’m going to be pretty depressed.

To cheer myself up I treated myself to a day of not wearing pants.

This quickly backfired when I opened my door to pick up my lunch and the food delivery team were akwardly still there.

Usually they move on pretty quickly AND I check through the door hole thingy that no one is around before collecting my food but since I was pretty distracted today I just flung the door open looking like this:

The only time in my life to date that I have regretted not wearing pants

I was on the receiving end of some very embarrassed over the mask glances before they hastily pushed the trolleys far far away.

Thankfully there was a highlight to counteract this low point for the day – a delivery of essentials…..

Emergency iPad, emergency oil diffuser, emergency Andy Bowdy Tiramisu and 911 Brownie courtesy of my sister and Ed ❤

Andy Bowdy Tiramisu is the depression cure I didn’t know I needed. I may now have gestational diabetes but I feel like it was all worth it.

Speaking of diabetes, here were today’s meals:

For those of you who are familiar with my hatred of apples please rest assured that they always get sent back to the kitchen un eaten. They truly are the devils fruit.

Nadia or nothing

Today I didn’t shower and brush my teeth until 4p.m but it was for good reason – I have discovered Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking” and it is incredible.

Salty Sima Auntee

I can’t think of another show since Tiger King that is as problematic as it is entertaining.

If you’re not of south asian descent this sentiment may shock you but it is, in fact a very common and disturbing part of our culture

And while I could spend a lifetime deconstructing Aparna, her hate for 10 day beach holidays and her incredibly problematic mother

I say problematic but actually most indian kids have had their parents give them this speech at one point in there lives. Usually around the age of 5.

I’ll leave that hot mess to Auntee Sima

The chanting probably should never end…..

As i’d rather gush over the true kween of the show Nadia

SERIOUSLY HOW IS SHE STILL SINGLE??

Without giving away too many spoilers all I will say is that Nadia is the energy we all need to embody to get through the rest of this shit show of a year.

Even though I am in a very happy and committed relationship I would sacrifice it all to make sure I never have to see this goddess cry about feeling lonely ever again.

SERIOUSLY WHO LOOKS THIS GOOD ON THEIR PERIOD??

If it was socially acceptable I would arrange a marriage right now between her and my unborn son as soon as he turns 18. To be fair if she is still single in 2038 I might just slide into her DMs.

Apart from realising that I am now pro arranged marriage my next biggest take away from this show is that if my son turns out anything like Akshay then I will have truly failed him…..

Someone should write a phD on how problematic this statement is

Having said that I do intend to use my blood pressure as a parenting tool of manipulation liberally and unashamedly.

Are you even an Indian mum if you don’t say this at least ONCE to all your children??

And for the only non Indian Matchmaking content of the day here were my meals:

Surviving the swab

I have never needed a drink more during this pregnancy than I did after enduring my first Covid test nasal swab. It was previously described to me as a pap smear for your nose and to be honest I’d rather have 5 smears in a row then go through that again…..luckily I get to do it again on Day 10!

Any penetration of that severity warrants at least a post entry cocktail but I had to settle for Wagon Wheel chocolate bar that came with my lunch

Can confirm not as good as the OG wagon wheel

On the plus side I had a present delivered from the hotel soon after the swab to keep me distracted…..

This doesn’t bode well for the crochet kit……

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that finishing one hard sudoku puzzle erases the damage of watching 3 hours of the Kardashians which is what I’m currently averaging so this booklet truly is a blessing.

Apart from swabs and sudoku I also managed to get changed out of my pyjamas before midday and wash my hair.

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe she just got swabbed

And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten to document my other two meals for the day:

I wonder how many mornings of Sultana Bran I’ll be able to withstand before I lose my shit. Both literally and figuratively