in my 'life-admin' era

it requires ample stationery and many cups of tea

I’ve always been a stationery girl. Give me all the notebooks and pens, I’ll leave the cabbage patch dolls and barbies, thanks. Two of my children, particularly the youngest, have inherited this penchant so if you’re ever in need of a fresh notebook, or a fancy pants pen, or sticky post-its in all of the colours, feel free to pop in. We’ve got everything in stock!

My preferred pens for writing are the uniball eye and uniball vision elite. Sometimes a HB graphite pencil does the trick and I do enjoy some pencil scrawling and the ease of erasing, especially when I’m outlining a chapter list, or brainstorming at the start of a new book.

I’m currently editing first pages. The text has been laid-out as it will appear in the actual book - colour headings, breakout boxes and sub-heads etc - and then my editorial manager prints it onto A3 paper and sends it to me in the mail. This is officially kitchen table territory and only a red pen will do. My job is to go through and find mistakes and also tidy up sentences I missed in the structural and line edits. But you know what else it represents? As I said to my family yesterday: this, here, is 18 months of my life! “Good job, mum” they replied, and then went back to their game of ‘throw, throw burrito’ which is the perfect card game for kids who prefer dodgeball (they haul toy burritos at each other in the hallway).

I walked with a friend last week and we talked about books and budgeting and the fact that raising children (and preparing them for adulthood) in this financial climate feels particularly worrisome. We wonder: will they live at home till they’re 30? Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. My diary highlights meetings for work and medical checkups for children, early school pick-ups and fruit + veg shops in-between. I work out how much money is going towards the mortgage and the rates, the groceries and the tax bill. I bump into the Australia Post delivery driver in the main street and I remark that I haven’t seen her in a while. “That’s because you haven’t bought anything,” she says. Huh, true!

I’m in my life-admin era.

I’m brushing pastry with whisked egg and milk when I say to my partner: I think I’d file chicken pie under an ‘easy dinner night’ if I buy a charcoal chicken for the filling and he replied: “You really are in your life-admin era”.

I am, I really am!