Rantings from The Walking Dictionary!

FML SOMETIMES!!

2010-11-10T20:30:00.002+11:00

Could I just have one week where nothing breaks down or goes wrong???washing machine shorted the house out at 3am Tuesday. Had to unplug everything in the dark cause I didn't know it was the washing machine at that stage, then ring the neighbour as his dogs don't like ppl near their fenceline at any time let alone 3am. Then climb out a window to get to power box (easiest route with no lights) and switch house back on. With me working thurs/fri/sat the earliest the repairman can get to it is next Monday. It was mid load with work clothes, kids swimmers & schoolwear & the mans work uniform. Handwashed swimmers & chucked the rest in the bathtub, but got sidetracked by preteen not doing as asked, came back inside & thought wow sounds like a waterfall OH Shite!!! Bathtub overflowing onto bathroom floor. 6 towels later it's semi dry. Preteen not listening, late for swimming, get there boo has no goggles. Grrrrrrr Grrrr grrr!! Working extra days this week & next week which is good for the bank balance but extra pita when trying to get repairmen out, plus washing machine will eat a chunk of paypacket & car is making weird flashing on dash when first started, so guarantee it needs to visit the mechanic real soon (I told it that if it breaks down before then that I am walking away & leaving it there). In the next three weeks have six school things to attend or drop kids off to, booked in to do a 2day course, working 8 days & attending 2 bday parties with kids, so can't afford car to break down (work is 40mins @ avg 80km/hr away, walking is not an option). Oh yeah & have to deal with centrelink again :/ So please God, CeilingCat & any other entity, let me get through the next three weeks!!!

So what do you do when ......????????????????????

2010-06-19T21:54:00.000+10:00

Your man has a low libido and only goes to bed to snore?????????

Your man spends all day watching porn while you are at work and then pays no attention to you when you get home?????

Notices all the "chicks" at the gym in the distracting lycra but is embarassed to be seen with you at the gym cause you are a little overweight and he is now getting muscly and confident with his appearance???????

Wants you to be fit and lose weight, wear sexy clothes etc, but doesn't want to help or support you to do so???

Has a tonne of internet profiles and only one says "in a relationship", the rest say single, or nothing at all, none of them mention my name, none of them have a photo of us together or even just a pic of me with girlfriend or partner labelled on it????????

Spends all his time reading posts on a forum written by males who believe "alpha" means treating all women with disrespect, calling them bishes and ho's and picks up bad mannerisms and patterns of speech and even in his own words, needs to stay away from it, but keeps going back like an addiction???????????

Yet he helps out around the house even though it isnt his home, buys food when he knows i am having a tight financial week, helps out with my kids sometimes & late at night he has nightmares if I am not sleeping next to him.

What am I supposed to think or do??

I am sooo confused.

I love this man, I want to marry him. Even more, I want him to love me so much that he wants to marry me. That he has eyes for no other woman, let alone "chicks". That he is proud to be with me, to have me in his life and wants the world to know it.

Where do I belong?

2010-06-08T23:11:00.000+10:00

I feel like I am living a kids story, and maybe I am. I often feel like I am the "ugly black duckling" and I keep waiting to turn into the beautiful swan & find that I do belong somewhere, that I fit in, am accepted.

Is it silly to think that being married makes you belong to another family? My own family (parents/siblings) barely recognise my existance, and while my boyfriends family seem to accept me, I always feel on the outside, cause even after 6 years and six months together, I am still just the girlfriend. His brother got married last year, his parents havent even met her yet (the brother and his wife live overseas), yet when family emails or facebook posts get sent, it seems she is automatically accepted because she married one of the family. Is it so wrong that I want this kind of belonging and acceptance too? And not just from the family, I want it from my boyfriend, I want to know that he accepts me for who i am and is proud to tell the world that by wanting me as his wife, not just as the invisible girlfriend that has never met any of his friends, isnt listed as being linked to him on anything, not even stupid facebook page.

I am only months of finishing my degree and hopefully will get a post graduate position in the hospital of my choice as a Registered Nurse. I will then BELONG to one of the oldest professions and I know there is a culture in itself as being a NURSE. I will be part of a worldwide group, a country, state and local group and also as part of the hospital group and even down to a single ward or speciality. I look forward to this as I have never had that sort of experience in a workplace before either and friends who are already working as RN's have told me about it. So at least professionally, I will belong somewhere.

But I crave the personal belonging. I hate being alone all the time. I try not to be jealous of others, but those people who can call on their parents or siblings for help, who go to family gatherings for special occasions, the ones who get to have things like baby showers or bridal showers ( i never had either of those) and get surprise parties or even just parties thrown for them on special birthdays etc. I want those things and cant have them.

I am actually dreading next april, as I will graduate then (lol graduation will happen 7 months after I actually finish my degree). I am going to be surrounded by other graduates with their families celebrating their acheivements, whilst I will be lucky if i have my boyfriend and my children there. Considering I wont be able to organise them and get them there (I will have to be there much earlier from what I have seen of friends graduations), it could very well just be me there, graduating with noone I know to see it, let alone take photos of me. I certainly wont have parents there, I am the first in the family to ever go to university, let alone graduate and my family couldnt give a passing thought about it, let alone care to attend my graduation ceremony.

I have been feeling very emotionally precious lately. Time seems to fly away from me and I fear that I will end up growing old by myself, I watch my father doing this as he has pushed away every member of family other than my grandmother (his mother) and I hate that I cant do anything to please him, nothing at all, I am never good enough. He doesnt like my boyfriend, when I tell him my good grades he comments that he wonders if i will complete this, seeing as i have never completed anything else as far as he is concerned (it never occurs to him that maybe the lack of supportive family since i was 9 years old may have something to do with this fact, or that I have raised two children without any family support counts as completing something?).

I am probably repeating things I have put in previous posts, but they are ongoing worries and fears. I dont know yet how to get past them. I will share the secrets when I learn them.

The end of this year brings many changes. I will finish uni, finish up my parttime work, hopefully have been offered and accepted a good post graduate position, have my house up for sale & sold at a good price and then be able to find a nice bit of land and build the home we want on that bit of land and start to live a more stable, secure life as our own little family unit. I still dont know if my boyfriend will be with us or not (he doesnt seem to be able to commit and one minute he seems interested and then the next he doesnt, who knows???) so all I can do is plan for me and two children. Would definitely make it easier if there were two adults and two incomes, but I cant guarantee that, so will just have to do the best i can with just me.

As usual, it will be me against the world. Maybe one day I will belong.......

My WOW Moment

2010-05-12T16:11:00.001+10:00

My WOW moment! Had to share, sorry if it sounds like bragging, it is sort of, but not really, just had the most amazing experience. Have de-personalised info, so as not to be breaking privacy rights of the patient.

On a previous practicum placement in an Emergency Department assigned to an older RN who wasn't too happy to be lumped with a final year student RN, amongst doing a really wicked wound packing/dressing & other things, I picked up on a patient being not quite right. A lovely person who had been so bright and chirpy when I started my shift, was now lying scrunched up, apparently sleeping, but it just didnt feel right, couldnt explain why, it just didnt.

So seeing as I could, I did the most obvious thing to me, I stood there while they appeared to sleep (and everyone else had thought they were sleeping) and counted the respirations (how many times their chest rose/fall for a full minute). Now the average adult breaths about 12 - 18 times a minute, generally closer to 12 when lying down in a bed, and this tiny little adult person was breathing 31+ breaths per minute - first alarm bell!!! & I could see some tracheal tugging, just faintly, but there - second alarm bell!!!.

So I checked oxygen sats and they were 88%- third alarm bell!! (you need to be above 95%, preferably closer to 100% ). So put oxygen on and sat person up a bit more in the bed, got another pillow to help prop person up a bit better, and person told me inbetween their lungs was hurting and so was their back - 4th alarm bell!!!.

So I put 2 and 2 together and instead of getting 4, I got a window of clarity!! All that study paid off!

So talking to the other RN I was attached to (being still a student myself I am limited to what I can do without supervision, but this RN didn't mind having me in her space or bugging her to come do something), I said I wanted to do an ECG, was told patient had had one earlier thatmorning, but yes go do one for practice, will be a good learning tool. So I do the ECG, and dig out the earlier one, and go show the RN, cause my patient wasnt just a good learning tool, they had just had a very obvious infarct!!! (my window of clarity). So then i go get the doctor involved, and now the doctor is talking to me like I am a very important person, rather than just another student.

Then I get to use the brand new, noone ever used it before, new monitoring equipment, and modify it to suit my patient, and by then the patients designated RN (the one who isn't so happy to be lumped with me and is now even less happy about it) is back, only to find out all of this has happened and all this stuff has and is being done by the student, so I spent the rest of the day doing obs on this patient every half an hour, doing all the documentation (there is lots of that!!), the doctor kept coming to me to ask for information and to get things done for the patient (some of which I cant do yet as a student, so then I had to go round up the RN - total role reversal there lol and no RN likes it when the student is doing their job better than they are!!). In the end the patient, who before I counted her resps was being readied for discharge, ended up being admitted to the HDU instead, so I got to do all the admission and ward transfer paperwork as well (paperwork is endless, good thing I don't mind it too much lol).

Oh yeah and somewhere in there i got to do other stuff for other patients as well.

At the end of the day I got praised by the RN infront of the afternoon staff, thanked by three staff members, had two doctors talking to me as if I was an equal, and then praised by my clinical teacher (who was informed by the doctor!! about her wonderful student) at debriefing, who told the other students infront of me (and I am not good at accepting public praise) saved a patients life today. Then the other nursing student staying here in the accommodation told the med students how I saved a life today.

Yet at the time it didnt seem such a big deal, i was just doing what needed to be done. It was just so obvious to me, like second nature (which it isnt, most of the time I feel like I am a bumbling fool learning my way around in a new and strange world). So I was feeling a little dazed when clinical teacher and the other student were making a fuss over me.

So after a celebratory meal with the other nursing student, and a small celebratory drink (i dont drink beer, so I had some Green Ginger Wine - Stones of course), I am sitting here doing my daily "reflective practice log" thinking WOW I DID THAT!! BY MYSELF!!! I may very well have saved that persons life.

Considering my career path its pretty certain this is the first of many, but WOW!!!!!

HI BLOG! I HAVEN'T FORGOTTEN YOU!

2010-05-12T15:35:00.001+10:00

Wow life gets so busy that even though I write wonderful blog posts in my head while I am pretending to sleep at night, or while I am sitting at one of my children's extra curricular activities, I never actually get on here to blog it.

I am a walking ball of stress lately, assignments, practicum placements, getting a preteen ASD child accepted into a high school for next year, trying to work out where I want a post graduate year before I need to put in the applications to the dept of health, trying to work out where I am going to go when I move out of this house, facing the fears that it isn't all planned and in front of me - very scary indeed!

My man seems to have become more settled, mature maybe, focused and committed even and this is helping as I am feeling a bit safer there, but in four or five months time i am going to be uprooting my entire family out of the house I own, to clean it up and sell it, but I don't know yet WHERE we are moving too, so this is not going to help any feeling of security.

Why is it that some people seem to have such simple easy lives, no matter what they do they never seem to have stress? They don't have partners walk out on them, they seem to have the perfect life, families that are supportive no matter what they do, good jobs that are never unstable or uncertain???

I want that life, but its not possible, for starters I don't have the supportive family, even though I have 2 brothers, 2 sisters, a father and a mother, I really don't have any family at all.

My mother might as well be dead for all the interaction I have had with her in the last 20 years, in fact as far as she is concerned, I am dead. One of my sisters moved to the other end of the country to get away from everyone (didn't work very well, my mother learnt how to get to the airport and fly cross country, which means her plane flies right over my house, yet she has never been here and never will by her own choice anyway). My other sister is the baby of the family and in her early twenties and still acting like a spoilt three year old. I had hope that she might grow out of the foot stamping and tantrums, but from what I am told, its still happening.

My brothers, well I love them both, but they are still at home, still haven't ever had to look after themselves let alone anyone else, so they never think about anyone but themselves, they work, sleep, eat & play computer games. I keep hoping that they will meet a nice girl and move out of home and settle down to adult life, but as they get closer and closer to being 30, the chances are getting slimmer. At least I get to see one of them every now and then, when I travel interstate and arrange to see him, it never happens the other way around. This is a pity as he would make such a great uncle, but my kids only get to see him once or twice a year and only when he is at work or occasionally has the time to come see a movie with us while we are visiting him.

And then there is my father. I used to be angry at the way he treated me, but all I feel is sorrow and pity for him now. He is determined to die a lonely old man. He will turn 60 on Saturday and will spend the day by himself, away on yet another business trip! He has a wife and three daughters, a sister, a mother and a granddaughter, but he HATES WOMEN! The only one he goes out of his way to see or speak to is his mother, who is 89 and has the early stages of dementia happening, the rest of us he has driven away. I keep trying every now and then, but I cant force him to like me or want to see me. Of all his children, and all of his family, I am the very first to ever go to university, and this year I will complete my degree, so I will be the most qualified member of the family, but even this isn't good enough. Out of all my grades, I currently have 9 distinctions, 5 credits & a single Pass (of the gradeable units), so not a bad effort considering I also have children to take care of, paid employment to attend too and all the other things a mother has to do, yet I still cant even get my father to acknowledge I have done something with my life.

So, the only family I have that I can count on are my children, currently aged 9 and 12. My aunty is wonderful, but she is busy and has her own life and she lives 3 hours away, so we don't get to see her regularly either, but when we do, she is like a grandmother to my children, spoiling them & making them feel wanted and loved, which is good considering my own mother doesn't even acknowledge their existence.

Other than my children, there is my partner, yet I am reluctant to rely on him, I am still fearful of the past and this is going to take time to change the insecurities, especially when those insecurities get thrown in my face when I see or hear a certain persons name. I still feel like crawling into a hole, curling up in a ball and dieing every time he mentions her or looks at her web pages. Its been two years next month, but it still hurts like hell and has me waking up shaking in cold sweats from the nightmares. I do trust him, but I don't know how to let go of the fear and insecurity. It isn't as bad as it was, it is slowly fading, but I often wonder if it will ever fully go away. I was too trusting back then, was completely secure and happy and then everything shattered around me and I don't know how to get back to that feeling of secure and happy. I get close and then she crops up in the computers history or gets mentioned for some reason and the nightmares and the doubts and fears start again. I wonder if this is normal, then I see and read about other females who have had similar situations and a lot of them are far worse off than me. Most of them never get their partner back, so I guess I am lucky, mine didn't wander too far and didn't physically cheat on me, but I still felt very betrayed and hurt, and that is what took so long to heal. This is something only I can change or deal with though.

And all of the above is why I am so scared of not knowing what is going to happen next, where I am going to and what I am going to do. Cause it all falls down to me being in charge, I don't have anyone to share that burden with. I am old fashioned and believe in marriage, but even that is not a certainty or a guarantee that it will work. Let alone my partner not only doesn't believe in marriage, he is dead set against it. So as much as I might dream, it isn't going to happen. I will be lucky if he ever even admits I am his partner. In six years, he has met a lot of my friends (only ones he hasn't met are the ones I haven't physically seen in those years, like my beautiful friend who moved back to Egypt). The only friend of my partners I have ever met is the one girl mentioned above, because I needed to see her face to face to deal with my demons. I have been back to his hometown with him several times, but he never visits anyone. I am in his friends list on facebook (finally, only took 5 years) but there is no link saying I am anything but a random friend. I don't even have a single bit of jewellery that I can look at and say "he gave me that". I still have no idea why that is important to me, it just is and as he hates jewellery (something to do with the fat cats making money off silly females that like shiny things), well it's pretty much a given that I will never get a piece of jewellery from him. I guess I cling to the idea of marriage because it is a public form of commitment and I am still a scared little girl who fears being alone. I probably should have been of marriageable age in the fifties, what I crave seems to be of no importance to men or society in general in this day and age.

So now I have to try and plan for at least the next 12 months, without knowing where I will be, if I will have a post graduate placement, or if I will have to hunt for suitable employment without the safety barrier of a post graduate year (extra support and learning packages etc but only a limited number of local placements available each year). Add to this moving out of my home. My eldest starting high school (and all the fears that go with that, especially as he needs the extra security and help and moving house isn't going to be helping all that). I pray that he will be accepted into the school we want, as he will have friends there, and they provide extra help and support and can offer him so many opportunities that just aren't available at other schools.

My poor Boo is always left out, I feel guilty that most of my worry goes to my Moo. I don't worry so much about Boo as she is so independent and capable, just like I was at her age, although I was more mature then because I had to be as eldest child, whereas she is the baby, but I am happy she doesn't have to have the responsibilities I had back then, she gets more of a chance to have a normal child hood. She will succeed no matter what, she is too stubborn to do otherwise. Today she is sitting Naplan tests for reading and comprehension for year 3. She tells me this morning at the school gate that she will do well as she is aiming to beat her brothers marks. I tell her this wont be hard to achieve cause he never even sat the year 3 Naplan testing (seeing as the school he was at back then didn't think he could read at all, they simply didn't include him in the testing, stupid school considering he was reading at tertiary level, he just didn't find their books interesting enough to read to them). However I think my Boo is trying to beat his year 5 NAPLAN scores, which he tested at above year 7 level for reading and poor Boo is slightly dyslexic, so I am not sure its possible for her to test that high in year 3. However with her determination, by the time she sits the year 5 tests, I wont be the slightest bit surprised when she tests higher out of pure stubbornness!!! I know I wont have to worry about her being accepted to any high school, all her report cards talk about her willingness, her extraordinary effort, her wonderful personality, her compliance with every request the teacher makes, how she helps other students. She is never the top of the class in grades, but she is never far behind and her effort makes up for that fact (unlike Moo who can be the top of the grades without any effort but half the time doesn't try at all and it shows).

OK blog, well that's enough insecurities and fears and hopes and random ravings for now. I still have an assignment to write, kids to collect from the bus stop, extra curricular activities to attend to and plenty of housework (never ending!) that needs to be done.

I will try to get on here more often and write something witty and cheerful for a change lol. I am always surprised anyone reads what I write (most especially my anonymous reader who comments that he/she/it doesn't like my writing style, so I have no idea why they read it, considering its my blog I don't really have to conform to any style, there are no rules involved!)

Thank you blog for letting me get this out of my head, its like a form of counselling, without having to tell this all to a counsellor, or even open my mouth. Actually its better than counselling, cause I don't have to explain what I mean if I don't want too (or simply can't).

HUGS!

The Hard Way

2009-11-04T00:35:00.001+11:00

Everything I have learnt in life was learnt the hard way, making mistakes, facing consequences, sometimes having to make multiple mistakes of similar nature to learn that they all end with the same set of consequences. I keep wondering when I will get to be able to learn and do things the easy way.

Well now I am wondering if I am going to yet again learn the hard way.

You see tonight, well I gave the man I love a letter, telling him a lot of the things that I cant voice aloud, or things that I did voice that he seems to have not heard or dismissed as me being dramatic. I told him exactly what I wanted and asked him to go spend some time away from me and to work out what it is that he wants now and for the next ten or twenty years (at least). I also put a somewhat of a demand in there, he HAS to make a decision and tell me what it is.

So if I have made a mistake then I may just have ended my relationship with the only man I have ever loved so much that it physically hurts when he isn't here or we have an argument.

If I haven't made that mistake then maybe he will finally make a decision and I wont have to live in limbo while I wait, teetering between two extremes - fearing he will find something better and just walk out or hoping he will realise that our relationship is worth it and that while his parents and my parents may have stuffed up their marriages, that not all marriages equal doom.

See the biggest problem is that I crave the security of knowing that he is committed to us, he fears any form of commitment, most especially anything related to marriage.

I have been married once before (one of my learnt the hard way lessons). The man I love had never had a relationship last even six months, until he met me. Last year after 5 and a bit years together, he walked out, well not physically at first (its long and complicated, like everything else in my life – add sarcastic yet sad lol) and then after months of angst and pain, including him moving temporarily to his mothers place and then into a granny flat, he realised it was me that he wanted after all (long story, but he was/is suffering depression, and had never had to look after himself for more than a few days, so didn't realise what he had until he threw it away). Anyway, since valentines day we have been back together, not officially for a bit, but slowly working on it and doing ok for the most part.

There are still issues that plague us and that commitment thing is the crux of it, because it seems to be linked to his depression, and because the fear of not knowing, the living in limbo, makes me a walking emotional hormonal mess.

Oh and just to add to the list of problems, because of the depression, he has a lower libido than me (very backwards there, I was always sure it was the male that was supposed to want sex ten times a day, not the female), and because he works long hours in a physically demanding job, then spends 2 to 3 hours an evening punishing himself in the gym (yes he does look good with muscles and it makes him feel better about himself), he is too tired to be interested in anything else on a regular or even semi regular basis, making me a very edgy and unhappy girl, who just wants to know she is wanted and needed and loved by the only man she has eyes for.

So apparently I am weird, not only do I have the unusually high libido, I also would happily go live in the fifties, where the men did the men things and the women did the women's things and there was very clear defined roles.

At the moment in my house I am the breadwinner/homemaker/housecleaner/mother/father/wife/husband/accountant/teacher and just to add to the stress, I am also the student. I juggle the housecleaning with finishing my degree, I am rebuilding broken bits of my house, can replumb my own taps or toilet, paint, plaster, tile. I CAN do lawn work and own a brushcutter and good mower, yet I DONT WANT to do the lawns or maintain the garden, I want to just enjoy them, the same way that most men DONT WANT to clean the house or do the dishes, they just want to relax and enjoy a friendly, warm, inviting house and eat good food served on clean dishware.

I want a husband!! I want a partner, one who will share the providing of income. I am getting a degree in nursing and do plan to work as a nurse, I have no problem with working plus keeping a house and mothering, I just want to share the load so that I don't have to be both sides/halves of everything. I thought that wasn't too unreasonable a request. I want someone who will be there for me, I don't have family to do that for me, other than my beautiful kids, so surely its not much to ask for a man who will try to remember my birthday, Christmas, an anniversary (once a year, I don't mind if its not the exact date, or the right day, wrong month, don't care, just once a year do something special) and be there for special things, like when i fuck up an assignment, or pass a stressful exam, or drive me to said exam because I am a basket case that hasn't slept for a week while studying madly! I want help raising my kids, I can make all the decisions, set punishments, decide rewards, do homework etc, but someone to be there as a backup if I have to go away (pracs are good for that), someone to stand with me when I am standing up to a teenager pushing the boundaries. These are the sorts of things I want.

I also want to have a shared dream/goal. We used to have that, but then all of a sudden (well it was sudden for me, he didn't tell me things had changed until well after), that shared dream/goal was gone. Now I have future plans, but they are vague, I am working towards them, but without knowing if its just me or if their will be an “us”, I find it hard to make them more clear.

The kids and I want to live on a property. I always wanted 100 acres, but now that I am restricted to within 30 minutes of my current residence (due to kids schooling, as well as most of my friends are here, and my mans work and mother are here as well), I find myself looking at properties that are well and truly over inflated in value (two hours west of here 100 acres with no house would be anywhere from $65,000 - $200,000. Here the same bit of land is worth $1,200,000!!). So, I am willing to settle for as small as 10 acres if I really must, just to get out of suburbia (and away from the neighbours from hell, whose favourite pastime is bashing and terrorising white females/children or breaking and entering houses and cars). I want a NEWLY built shed home (after 11 years of fixing things on my 40 odd year old ex housing commission home), and I want a veggie garden and some chooks, horses, goats and a cow or two, as well as my existing dog (aussie cattle dog) and my two cats.

Now I can probably get enough of a loan (once current house is sold) once I am working fulltime as an RN, for a small parcel of land and the basic shed home. But I cant see how I can maintain such a property and work fulltime, when I already have trouble maintaining my current quarter acre while studying and working part time.

So, I at least have an idea of where I am trying to head, what I am working towards and roughly what I need to do to achieve this, but I have no idea what my man wants, mainly because he either doesn't know or doesn't want to admit it or tell me.

So in telling the man I love that I want all of the above, and that I want him as a 100% partner, committed, in the role of husband if he cant face actual marriage (its really just a bit of paper) and role of parent (he is already partly been in that role for years, no real change there, other than admitting it to himself) and that I want him to work out what he wants so we can try to make a shared future. I may have just chased him away, or I may have done the right thing and he might actually face some fears and it might work out.

But right now, I am alone (i did ask him for time out, so that i can get some stuff done that i have been putting off but need done before my next prac which is in three weeks time), I need him to hug me and tell me he loves me and doesn't want to lose me, and I am terrified that he will misunderstand me and end it, or that he wont be ready to make a commitment and end it because of whatever reason.

So now I am even more fearful, hopeful, terrified and wondering if I have yet again fucked up something good. Except this relationship, it isn't just good, its special, fantastic, everything, and I am afraid of being alone for the rest of my life, living in regret.

Ok well I had to tell someone, thanks for reading if you made it this far.

POO!!

2009-10-28T20:02:00.001+11:00

LOL well I had this wonderful topic rattling around in my head last night, so decided to share it.

What is Poo??

Well for starters, we are not talking about that loveable character “ Winnie The Pooh “ by E.E. Milne.

Well as a noun it is a slang or colloquialism for faecal matter, yet it can also be used in the form of a verb, for instance a young child is told to “Go Poo” (preferably in the toilet).

It can also be a statement, when walking into a room with a noxious odour, a person might say “Poo” while madly fanning the offending odour away from their sensitive olfactory glands.

Another meaning arises when a person needing to swear, yet trying not to because little ears can become parrots, or older ears could be sensitive, so the person says “Oh Poo!!” instead of “That's BullShit” or “FUCK!!!”.

It seems Poo is almost a taboo topic, yet everyone does it, everyone knows about it, but we rarely discuss it, other than in select groups, i.e. new mothers suddenly find poo is a common topic of their daily lives, as it is also for nurses or those working in aged care.

Most people are shocked to find that doctors, nurses, naturopaths, dieticians and many more “professionals” are interested or concerned about their patients/clients poo.

Yet it is so because it is a very simple way to measure the inner health of a person, not only their digestion, but their kidney & liver function, their immune state, and much more.

Many couples are horrified that their partner might walk in and catch them in the act of pooing, that seems to be a line, a boundary, once its crossed, their really isn't any more mystery or secrets (thanking my lovely other half for that comment, which was said in jest, but it fits my topic so well lol). I wonder though, if you cant discuss poo with your partner, who can you discuss it with?

Maybe because I am studying nursing, my other half has gotten comfortable with telling me intricate details of his daily motions, questioning my bank of knowledge to analyse any changes, allay any fears. This has partly come about after he had to have stomach surgery and then found out he also has a food intolerance, so has become hyper sensitive to changes in his poo habits as they indicate how well he is tolerating new foods (or not tolerating them).

Poo is a constant topic between mothers and their children. About to leave on a long car trip, its common to send children to “go poo and wee NOW”, knowing that it could be at least 2 hours until the next available toilet. Or simply going grocery shopping, halfway through filling a trolley with the needed items, your child announces that they DESPERATELY need to poo. Not all shops are ok with minding your half filled trolley while you leave the shop, especially if it already contains perishables or items on sale.

Having a son on the “interesting” scale, at almost 12 yrs of age, I still have to ask him to wipe properly or wash his hands with soap and I still have to soak poo trails out of his underwear and probably will have to do this for the rest of his life (or at least until someone else takes over his washing for me). However I thank God regularly and remind myself that I am pretty lucky, I know other parents with “interesting” children who have it far worse on the Poo scale, some having to clean up daily poo parties that involve linen, walls, carpet and even family members tooth brushes (Hugs K!), So in the scale of things, I am very lucky that when God was handing out all the different traits the “interesting” children could choose to make their own personal rainbow, that my child didn't choose anything worse.

I also deal with poo on a daily basis at the moment as we have a kitten in the pica stage of development, making cleaning her litter tray interesting, as you remove chunks of poo decorated with bits of colour paper, balloons, beads, crayons and anything else she decided might be interesting to eat. I am often amazed she manages to pass some of these things through her gut.

This often reminds me of my children going through daycare/preschool. I could always tell the days they had made playdough as they used to make it with glitter in it for decoration and my son would eat it, resulting in a nappy full of “glitter poo” later that night or early the next morning.

By now, if you’ve read this far, you may wonder HOW or WTF got me onto this topic. Well to be honest I am not totally sure. It could have been a post I read from a mother of a young child that reminded me of the “glitter poo” nappies, or the discussing with my partner after we both came down with gastro due to drinking bore water while away on the weekend, or it could have just been my unusual brain’s habit of providing me with random topics to keep me awake at nights.

So before I finish, I will leave you with some interesting facts.

If you are healthy, you should poo at least once a day, at a fairly regular time.
It should not be pale or khaki in colour, nor dark or black.
It should not be runny, nor should it be hard, pebbly or dry.
It should not float.
Mucousy poo is a sign of bowel inflammation.
Black is processed (old) blood, so if you haven't eaten raw meat or taken iron supplements, then go see your doctor ASAP if you have black or black flecked poo.
If you find it hard to poo regularly, try drinking half a litre of warm water about 20 minutes before your “poo time”.

Mine is in the mornings, normally 20 minutes after my morning coffee, so I know something is wrong if this time has come and gone and I haven't “gone” (In my case this generally means I have been naughty and eaten wheat and will suffer painful cramping and bloating later on).

Keeping a track of your poo may sound gross, but having that knowledge ready means the next time a nurse or naturopath or doctor etc asks you about your bowel habits, you can pleasantly surprise them with detailed knowledge.

Alright well that's enough shit about shit lol.

And if you haven't already today :-

GO POO!!!!!

Midnight Ponderings

2009-10-09T01:01:00.001+11:00

Have you ever had something that you really wanted, a goal or a dream, that wasnt entirely impossible, yet it terrified you beyond imagining, kept you awake at night, or woke you up from a sound sleep feeling anxious??

I often turn the lights out, put my head on the pillow, get comfortable, yawn, cuddle up to my man and then theoretically I should just ease into a sound and peaceful sleep. Right???

Wrong.

Just like tonight, my body is exhausted, I have to be up in a few hours and yet I cant sleep, and its all because my brain wont shut up and worst of all, its worrying and anxious, bordering on depressed, and not being able to get the answers it needs because to do that, I would have to admit my fears and worries and then put everything on the line, risking more hurt and rejection than I am already feeling and worrying about.

True, its possible the answers might be good and make me feel so much better, but to be truthful, I have very little confidence in that being the case, and there lies the crux of my problems..... Confidence.

I had a great friend in highschool, many many moons ago, that was one of the most cheerful, happy, lovely girls I have ever met. At sixteen she was at least 20 maybe 30 kilo's overweight, and while it bothered her, she never let it stop her enjoying life, friends, parties etc. The only time she ever admitted it bothered her was when we had a heart to heart one day about the most common thing a sixteen year old girl talks about ... BOYS. She had had many crushes on boys over the years, only for them to treat her like just another boy, while making googoo eyes at all her friends and she was certain this was because of her weight. I asked her why she didnt do something to try and change her weight, offering to be there to support her if she wanted me there, her answer shocked me.

She was SCARED of losing that weight, because she would have nothing to hide behind then and she had seen how bitchy and unhappy most of the skinny girls were and didnt want to be like them. That was an answer I had never expected to hear and couldnt understand at the time.

Yet here I am now, understanding because I have similar fears and wishing I hadnt lost contact with that girl (have been trying to find her on the internet for years now), so I could talk to her again, see how she went, did she conquer those fears??

You see when we had that chat years ago, I was 62kg, putting me at least 5 - 10kg underweight for my height and bone structure, even though I ate enough for three people every day, I just had a hyperactive metabolism. Then when I was diagnosed with endometriosis at 17 I started taking the recommended drug (depoprovera) and within 6 months I had almost no metabolism, barely ate enough for an ethiopian child to survive on, and had boomed up to 96kg. Several operations later plus the birth of 2 children and the resulting total hysterectomy, I weighed in at 135kg. Double the weight I had been 6 years prior. I was so unhappy and never felt like I was "ME" but try as I may, I could only get down to 105kg.

Thats what I weighed when I met my soulmate, the man of my dreams (literally and figuratively). He fell in love with me in spite of my weight, the size of my clothes or the fact that I wouldnt wear swimmers or swim in public. We used to walk all over the place, do activities that I hadnt done in years, have fun etc and I was so happy that with a little help, I managed to get down to 83kg, but I lost a lot of muscle tone in doing that, so wasnt as fit as I had been when we first met and this was noticeable because I wasnt as active, tired all the time etc.

A year later our relationship hit rock bottom without me even realising until it was too late that he wasnt happy, and one of the many reasons he finally told me was that he wanted a partner that was fit and active like he was, one that he could play football with or go to the gym with or swim at the beach with. I was devestated to say the least. It took 8 months but he got past the other issues that had been causing him to feel depressed and came back to me and slowly we have rebuilt our relationship, yet it isnt totally rebuilt yet and I often fear that one day he will leave again, and because of that, my self image is very fragile. Simple comments can shatter me when they were not meant that way and seeing myself in the mirror makes it all the more scarier because he is so active and fit and has such strong goals to get muscled up, that I wonder if he is revolted when he sees me naked. I wouldnt blame him because I am revolted everytime I see me in the mirror. So I got a gym membership and have slowly begun getting fit, slowly because a normal workout means I am exhausted for the next two days and in pain for at least three.

The fact that I dont go to the gym more than once a week seems to frustrate him, and it frustrates me too, but I cant explain or tell him my fears, so there is no way he could know just how hard it is. How do I explain that I have noticed that while I am getting fitter and stronger, I seem to be looking fatter! I know I am not getting fatter, but unfortunately all those operations and two babies over 9 pounds have left my stomach muscles very weak and the skin stretched, maybe beyond the point of self repair, so as I lose weight, my stomach seems to sag all the more noticeably, making me look worse and worse and while my arms and upper body start to tone up, my legs seem to be looking more and more shocking.

Dont get me wrong, I know its a long process, I know that it takes a lot of work to lose weight and tone up and I was prepared for that, but I wasnt prepared for the stomach. I guess i had kind of hoped that if I lost the weight slowly and gently that it would have a chance at repairing and tightening and toning itself. It makes me wonder about all those people that go on things like the biggest loser, how much stomach surgery do they have to have later on, how much do they not tell anyone about when it comes to fears and image problems that are actually worse during the process than they were before they lost weight.

Even worse is that my mind runs away with me, my man has been very tired this week, especially with daylight savings buggering his body clock and making it that he has to get out of bed an hour before his body is used to waking up, getting up in the dark again after he just got used to the fact that the sun was up before he was, so he hasnt been interested in any bedtime activities other than snoring soundly. BUT when he fails to show me that much needed extra attention, my low self image and low confidence suggests that maybe he has noticed the even more saggy stomach and is revolted by it as much as I am, but is just being too nice to tell me so. So instead of curling up warm and comfy with him, I lie there feeling like a leper, worrying that he will see some cute young female during the day (he is a tradie, comes across all sorts of people everyday) and that he will start seeing and comparing the differences, or worse, has already done that and found me lacking. Is this really the case?? Well I dont know, I certainly hope its not, but I am too petrified to ask, because maybe it is, but if it isnt, maybe he hasnt noticed the extra saggy belly and I dont want to bring attention to it, so I curl up and face those fears and worries by myself until my exhausted body takes over and simply knocks me into unconciousness.

And all those worries and fears bring me to remembering that conversation that day with my friend about how she could be SCARED to lose weight.

I understand now. I just wish I could find her and tell her that and maybe make up for not understanding back then.

Todays Men - A VENT!!

2009-10-01T01:08:00.002+10:00

Brand new tyre (well 14 days old), drove over a screw and punctured it on the way to swimming lessons, so I ended up having to change a dead flat rear tyre on a stationwagon in the middle of a carpark.

Not a problem because for all of the things my father has done wrong in my life, he did that one thing very right, he made sure I am independant, capable and able to do anything I set my mind too.

HOWEVER, I was amazed to watch 30 (yes I am anal enough to have counted them all) cars drive past me in the car park, 20 of them having healthy looking males in them, a lot wearing tradesmen or council clothing AND NOT 1 stopped to offer me help, but plenty stopped within metres of me to park their car and get out to go to the pool or the gym.

Several men came out of the gym, grinned, ogled boobs (i was not dressed for changing tyres today) and then got in their cars and drove off!! BASTARDS!!! . Only offer of help that I got was from a 50+ year old woman!!!

No matter that i am capable and independant (even with a bruised cruciate and a broken toe),
but HOW FUCKING RUDE TODAYS MALES HAVE BECOME!!!!

AT LEAST OFFER A LADY ASSISTANCE!!!! DONT JUST STARE AS YOU DRIVE PAST!!!

They say a change is as good as a holiday, well whoever "they" are, they were WRONG!!

2009-10-01T01:04:00.001+10:00

I decided to try a new and very simple recipe for dinner tonight as I am somewhat sick of eating the same things over and over again, but on a budget and with food intolerances/allergy, this is not always as easy as it sounds. To make it harder, I have a child that cant cope with change, even simple little things changing can cause him (hmm trying to think of a single word that can describe it) issues.

The recipe called for chicken, basil, peanut oil, shallots, chinese cabbage, garlic, lime juice, sugar and fish sauce.

I bought wombuk. My kids stood in the shop and argued whether it was chinese cabbage or not, thankfully that argument ended in laughter when Boo argued that the label said it was a WomBAT not a cabbage!! (there is nothing wrong with her reading, its just that information goes in, gets muddled and comes out funny sometimes, generally causing Moo and myself to disolve into fits of giggles at innapropriate moments while Boo either giggles with us or stomps her foot and cries in frustration).

BUT heaven help me, silly me, I let Moo read the ingredient list, he argued most of it, and he wonders why his mother is losing her sanity!! It is at this point I wonder WHY I got the really smart kid that questions everything, yet doesnt understand if its not all black and white and exactly as its written. He is MINE and I wouldnt give him up or change him for anything in the world or beyond, but I do sometimes wonder WHY, and these wonderings are generally at moments like tonight, when trying to rationalise a shopping list to a prepubescent, precocious, PITA, Moo!

The bloody shop didnt have anything with a label that said shallots:(

Dont they know that if it doesnt have the right label then I am going to have to spend half an hour explaining why i am buying the wrong one that is the right one or can be used inplace of the right one, just so the child with the list will hopefully let me get back to the car before my head explodes!!

So after all of that I i bought spring onions and on the way to the car at least Moo said they look similar so he thought it would be ok if we used them instead (Thanking God for that revelation occurring so bloody quickly, at least next time I will be able to grab spring onions and not explain them). He then spent the trip home arguing the difference between shallots and chives with his sister, as Boo was trying to explain that she had seen the plant i wanted in flower in my garden (garlic chives, similar but not).

I bought the fish sauce from the thai place downtown just before Boo's dance lesson earlier in the afternoon. Well if that didnt cause me a headache and a half!! They were still arguing about it after the lesson and all the way into the grocery shop.

Did you know that if it has a picture on the front of the bottle that is a squid, then the stuff in the bottle MUST be made of liquid squid??

Dont worry that it MIGHT be a BRAND NAME rather than an INGREDIENT!!! Oh and have a child having very noisy verbal palpitations because now the meal is going to TASTE LIKE SQUID instead of chicken. How dare I subject him to such CHANGE during his favourite activity (eating apparently rates higher than computer games or tv). The other child thought it might be soy sauce with a bit of fish added. Funny enough neither of them actually asked me WHAT was in the bottle (anchovies and seasalt to be precise). I try not to look or notice the faces of the people trying to shop near and around us, its easier if I dont see the looks.

At least the basil in a tube (wasnt any fresh basil), garlic in a jar (dont ask me why, but my son likes eating it straight from the jar!) and lime juice in a bottle ( by this stage my head was hurting too much to work out how many limes i would need to make 1/4 cup of juice) were easily grabbed and the only argument was from Boo who wanted to know (and I quote) " Are you looking for something Mummy or are we just aimlessly wandering down the aisles??", gee i wonder where she heard that from??

The chicken wasnt contested for a change, probably because it didnt have skin or bones!! Neither was the bottle of milk i requested, but thats because i promised never to buy kids milk again, the added omega three made it taste something shocking!! However we did have the argument that carrying the milk through two aisles meant they had numb fingers, but for some reason ended up with 2 x 3ltr bottles, I think maybe my kids like milk??.

I did mean to buy a few other things, but by the time i got that much my head was pounding, my broken and sliced up toe was throbbing and my knee (really got to stop injuring the stupid thing) was aching from trying not to step on aforementioned toe, so with all the ingredients for the meal I wanted to make, I decided to get out of there while I was still slightly sane and capable of actually preparing and cooking it. Good thing said children desperately wanted to watch the spearman experiment (or whatever its called), because it got them to make their beds and clean their rooms while I destressed infront of the computer for a bit and then kept them occupied while i cooked, so they dont know that I didnt follow the recipe exactly, i modified it to suit myself amd didnt have to answer or explain that to anyone (yayy).

On the bright side they loved the meal, gave me glorious rave reviews (apparently my meals are being reviewed and marks are being recorded in a notebook somewhere) and then went to bed without too much argument (only a few whines from the male child). I think I shall make this meal again (well I had to buy a litre of fish sauce, was the smallest bottle I could find, got to use it on something lol).

I guess overall the change wasnt too bad, would be nice if it was just a little less blood pressure raisingly painful to get through, especially when it occurs on a regular basis and it normally takes the same thing over and over and over and over and over until we can do it without the conniptions and palpitations and stress headaches.

Holland Down Under - The Clog Barn

2009-10-01T00:56:00.000+10:00

Our trip to coffs saw us visiting many places, but these were just so cute and the garden is fantastically maintained (bushes must be constantly pruned to keep them in the right proportions to the buildings etc). Now just bear in mind that these are not all in order as we walked backwards and forwards several times through this compact yet surprising garden village.

*** Found this post hiding away in my drafts folder, apparently i was going to write more or edit it later and forgot about it lol!!

SMILEY SATURDAY SWAP!

2008-03-29T13:00:00.005+11:00

Ok now another Smiley Saturday Initiative from Lightening was the Saturday Swaps. My swap partner A, lives in a rural area, a few hours outside a regional city, as do I (although my rural area is considered a rural city), so I dont know yet wether she has received the parcel from me, it can take up to two weeks to get a parcel to or from my area and this has had two public holidays occur since posting, so I will put up the pics I took of the parcel I sent to her and when I receive the parcel from her in return I will put up another post.

The pics above are of little lavender sachets, that were made from our own homegrown lavender, that has been dried in bunches hanging in our house and then my children helped to remove any stalks or spiky bits, to handmill the flowers to release more oil into the mix and then bagged in pretty sachets. There was PINK (part of the swap conditions) and maroon bags. Added to this two little easter chickens for A's two little boys and a necklace for A, who always has such beautiful clothes and I really felt this would look fantastic on her. The bag was an addition made by my beautiful Boo (7 next month) who thought the swap idea was the most fantastic thing she had ever heard of (pretty presents when its not your birthday!). Didnt have any cards, so printed a letter on dolphin stationery and folded it to fit inside the bag.

Will post pics when I receive my parcel from A.

Hugs,

Erin!

SMILEY SATURDAY!

2008-03-29T12:29:00.005+11:00

Ok well I am very slack and have been meaning to write a number of Smiley Saturday Posts recently.

Smiley Saturday is a Lightening Online idea that is just a fantastic way to really think about and express at least one reason to be thankful, happy, smiley etc each week. Thanks for the inspiration Lightening!!

Now, please forgive me, but I am going to combine several Smiley Saturdays into one post.

My first Smiley Saturday, I was thankful and smiling to attend a prenuptual barbeque, being hosted by my 2nd Cousin for her beautiful Daughter J, who was a bout to get married to her longterm partner (sweethearts since early highschool) A.

Now I was even more thankful because J, 23 or 24 this year (my 3rd cousin??) has been battling malignant melanoma that keeps reoccurring in the same place, and this last operation, they found that it was because it was on both sides of the main muscles in her cheek. Now this girl is absolutely gorgeous, could have been a model and still could, yet instead she chose to be a swimming instructor, pool lifeguard and then pool manager, to save kids from drowning.

So, with the last operation only a few months ago and then radium therapy, she has lost a fair amount of hair, has lost the majority of sensitivity and taste from her tongue and has been suffering the sideeffects, the worst being chronic fatigue.

My next Smiley Saturday was to post that the Beautiful J and SHY but funny A got married on a cliff overlooking the ocean in the small beachside town where her grandparents (my great uncle and great aunt) had a holiday unit and eventually moved too. Even more reason to be thankful was that my great aunt was able to be there and was reasonably lucid (she has dementia, diabetes and severe asthma and has had to move into high dependency care) to see her granddaughter get married. Her grandfather had passed away several years ago, but his spirit would have been there no matter what the cost, he was devoted to his daughter and his grandchildren.

A's mother was there and before the wedding, they performed another ceremony, as A's sister was killed in a semi versus car incident a number of years ago (she was a friend of mine from highschool) and then A's father passed away around 12 months after the loss of his daughter, so they had a remembrance for A's missing sister and father, so that even in death, they too could be there for the wedding. This was a very simple, yet touching way to include them.

Another Smiley Saturday, is that my father is now taking an active part in my life and the life of my children again, we had spent the last four years (which is a huge length of time for a kid that isnt 7 yet) with no more contact than four phone calls. He has now had christmas lunch, a birthday lunch for my Moo (10th bday) and then Easter lunch this past Sunday.

HUGS!!

Wheat, Gluten & Dairy Free Pumpkin Scones!

2008-02-22T15:27:00.005+11:00

Inspired by the talk of Fresh HomeGrown Veggies and simple baking of delicious munchies such as Scones, courtesy of Lightening Online, Chookies, Down To Earth & Dancing With Frogs, I decided to be adventurous and try to bake some Gluten, Wheat & Dairy Free Pumpkin Scones.

Now this doesnt sound much, but I have almost forgotten how to bake as for a long time with both kids having such opposite food intolerances, it was just too hard and too expensive, I had to get my head around normal things like school lunches and dinners that didnt take me all night to do (one is anaphylactic to egg, dairy intolerant but can eat wheat & loves fish but hates chicken and meat, the other is severely wheat and gluten intolerant, cant stand fish and lives on eggs, dairy, meats and fresh produce).

So, I managed to succeed in making an edible and rather delicious pumpkin scone with my own homegrown Jap Pumpkin and BOTH KIDS CAN EAT IT (although Miss Boo will only be able to have small amounts as it does contain cooked egg, but her medications cover the reactions to trace amounts of cooked egg, so she will only wheeze rather than have anaphylaxis).

Here is the recipe:

1/2 Cup of Sugar (I used ordinary white sugar for this)

1/4 Teaspoon of Salt

1 Tablespoon of Nuttelex ( I used 2 soup spoons lol as I cant find my tablespoon)

1 cup of cooled mashed pumpkin

1 Egg

2 1/2 Cups of Self Raising Flour (Orgrans Self Raising Flour)

Plus another 1/2 - 1 Cups of Self Raising Flour on board to turn mixture out onto

Preheat oven at 250 degrees celcius and place shelf at the top.

Prepare tray with grease or grease paper.

Using an electric beater, mix the sugar, salt and butter to resemble breadcrumbs.

Mix in the Egg and then the pumpkin.

With beaters turned off, fold in the flour (lighter consistency than icing sugar, so turns into a dust cloud if the beaters are on before its mixed through) , once moist, beat until mixture is consistent.

Turn out onto board with the other 1/2 cup of flour and attempt to knead (it is very sticky, reminiscent of CLAG GLUE). At this stage if you think it is too sticky, slowly add more flour and knead a little more.

Break into smaller chunks, shape or round as desired (i just made them into rounds about 5 cms diameter and 3 cms high).

Cook for 10 - 15 mins dependant on your oven (mine took 13 mins)

Place on rack to cool slightly and then serve with some more Nuttelex ( or butter and cream if you can have dairy!)

Ingredients in Orgrans Self Raising Flour are : - Maize Starch, Tapioca Flour, Rice Flour, Raising Agents (glucono delta lactone & sodium bicarbonate) and Guar Gum.

And the results speak for themselves (ignore the burnt bits, my oven and I have issues), the mix made 8 decent sized scones (I have already scoffed two and sent one over the road for my boyfriends mother to try, as we are trying to convince her that gluten/wheat free doesnt necessarily mean taste free).

Cheers!

More Bling! Thanks Lightening!

2008-02-21T02:34:00.007+11:00

LOL someone put the nar narnar nar narr narrr song into my head (I am very song impressionable at the moment lol, and somewhat loony going by my last post). So, thanks to a certain Lightening moment, I now have running through my head:

I have more bling I have more bling Nar narnar nar narrr narrrr. (I must go play some music now to get that out of my head or I will dream it too lol).

Anyways,

Thankyou Lightening for my new bling. Tis very Pink too, can see why you liked it.

This award originated from Me and my Drum

{"To accommodate a variety of blog themes, I have created three different “flavors” of badges: Creamy Cabernet, Midnight Oil, and Pink Smoothie.

Earlier this year I was tagged with the blogging tip meme in which the tip I offered was “Be the Blog“. That phrase stuck with me because I think that really sums up what a successful blogger does. And what I mean by successful is that they make it their own, stay with it, are interactive with their readers, and just plain have fun.

Since then I’ve been thinking about creating an award of my own, but with so many out there, it’s hard to find a niche that remains untapped for recognition. So I said, “What the heck?”, and decided to shape the phrase into an award called (you guessed it): Be The Blog."}

There considering tis so pink,

I think Kelley and Nicole must have a copy, Does Bettina like pink?? (Hmm memo to self, must find out) oh and Angel hun, a copy for you and the sweet little B, just save it on your computer, display it on your desktop for B to look at.

SING IT WITH ME!!

2008-02-20T01:36:00.005+11:00

I am tired, study is mindwarping and its raining AGAIN!! So instead of finding out if Ovarian Cancers can have teeth (my answer was yes, just have to back it up with a page number for evidence) my head was thinking this little ditty:

Its Raining Again!! I cant hear me over the noise of it pouring!!
Im studying female reproductive disorders while everyone else is snoring,
If I jump into bed, my knee will hurt so much I will NEED to bang my head
And I will still have to get up at some awfully early hour in the morning.

Now dont all gag at once, lol I never claimed to be a poet or a songwriter. It was shorter when i first sang it, but the novelist in me had to put two verses into one, it describes it so much better!

Ok well back to hysterectomies, vulvectomies, kegels, fistulas and other such stuff that i will be required to answer questions on later today. Good thing I am female and already know half this stuff and can answer without blushing. I think that comes from having children, lol after half the medical staff in the area have seen you naked with a kids head sticking out, then there is no reason to blush when saying words like vagina, vulva, penis etc. Funny thing (well from my warped point of view) is our tutor blushed lololol and she is a fully trained nurse and teacher and not exactly young anymore.

Mwuhahaha being wicked is definitely enjoyable. :p

Odd web things.

2008-02-19T23:46:00.002+11:00

lol now my last comment on a friends blog apparently upset wordpress, it gave me a screen saying do you really want to post this cause it contains the word cialis. Heres me wondering where on earth they thought this word was (and what does it mean?).

Turns out its part of the word Specialist (which was in my post) lolol and its a brand name for Erectile dysfunction medication. lolol.

Another blog i like commenting on uses those horrid read the distorted letters then type them into this box for your comment to be accepted. Problem is, everytime i type them in, it never accepts them the first time and I have to type them again. I have double and triple checked that I am not using caps-on, spacing them or anything of the sort that might cause an issue, I am sure its just that the blog doesnt like me leaving comments lol (as in the actual blog server, not the blogger, cause I am sure the blogger would tell me if they didnt want me leaving comments).

What weird things have happened to you whilst blogging, posting or internet browsing??

I Love this email!!

2008-02-18T13:47:00.003+11:00

Ok now I have NO IDEA who originally wrote this up, but I have had it forwarded to me by so many people and I just love it and want to share it with you all, but I dont really like forwarding every cute thing I get (cause theres at least ten of them each day that I LOVE, as well as ten or more that I LIKE lol).

SO, if anyone knows the actual owner of the below email, I would like to ask their permission to share it but dont know who to ask.

Anyways lol, Here Tis:

Sign of the times?

A little boy goes to his father and asks "Daddy, how was I born?"

The father answers: "Well son, I guess one day you will need to find out anyway!

Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your Mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.

We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, and since it was too late to hit the delete button, nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared that said:

Scroll down...

You'll love this....

'You got Male!'"

I am BAAAACK!!!

2008-02-17T22:39:00.003+11:00

Hi My Lovelies,

Have missed you all heaps!!!

Am finally sitting here with computer all fixed up (although its temporarily located in the corner of my bedroom, so no room for comfy puter chair, just horrid old kitchen chair or one of the kids chairs lol).

Just a quick catchup, cause I have to be up at 6.45am every morning now, or the kids dont get to the bus ontime, which is a PITA cause I still dont fall asleep til around 4am (even though I have been going to bed by at least 1am each night) and then at uni at 8am *****just 10 mins after kids bus arrives IF it is on time, leaving me roughly 7 mins to drive 5kms, find a parking spot and hobble at least 1km (IF I AM VERY LUCKY TO GET THAT CLOSE) to my first class or lab.

Anyways,

we went to Bris for Christmas, was good, more on that later.

It rained lots and flooded here several times, although my house only suffered minor flooding cause I live ontop of a mountain and only suffered the 2foot deep water that backed up from the front yard and under the house because it couldnt run down the hill faster than it fell from the sky at several points.

My yard now resembles a waist high jungle/swamp that the mower cant get through as it keeps sinking into the quickslime/mud/used-to-be-a-driveway.

I never got the painting finished in the loungeroom cause it rains EVERY F***ING DAY!!! and not all my windows are covered by overhanging roof etc.

Same goes for rewalling the bathroom, very hard to take cement sheeting outside to cut it with powertools and then paint it with waterproofing goo WHEN IT WONT STOP RAINING!

Oh and the piece de resistance - I rearranged my knee! So spent 2 weeks with a large splinty thing (great nurse I am lol cant even remember what its called) wrapped around it, hobbling on crutches (best investment i ever made when i bought those 10 years ago), doped on pain killers that made me spew all over DBF (Hats off to him, he managed to hold me upright while being spewed on, cause I couldnt use the crutches and hold a bowl and get to the bathroom intime) and have since been slowly getting around, stairs are a PITA lol!

Mr Moo turned 10, we had a fantastic party for him in Brisbane with my aunty and one of my brothers (the other one didnt turn up - asshat as Kelley would say)

Mr Moo has almost got his Official Dx (Diagnosis). The Paediatrician has written in his files that Mr Moo is most definitely On the Spectrum. Now we just have to go do lots of assessments to try and work out where and how much and what this means in relations to school fundings etc.

Uni starts tomorrow, for a 3 week intensive, and I AM NOT READY!!!!

Hehehe Well that is the highlights!!!

MANY MANY HUGS & THANKS to Precious1 for keeping me posted and sane while I didnt have any net access (found the problem today lol, onboard ethernet card had died, added a standalone card and disabled onboard one and all is fixed, yayyyyyy).

Oh and if I dont get around to commenting on any of your blogs just yet, thats cause there is about 500 unread posts and thats not counting Kelleys blog lol (moved while I was away just to confuse me lolol, dont worry, I found it - hehe thanks for the post on the old blog with the redirect lol)

HUGS!!!!!!!!

ME!

Back Soon I Promise!!!!

2007-12-18T14:25:00.000+11:00

Ring me or txt me pls! Left contact details with Kelley! No net access yet as also have loungeroom ripped apart to paint (did ceiling last night, now to do walls and then get carpet in as well as have christmas somewhere in there too!). Hugs and Love Ya All, Miss you heaps and cant wait to get time to actually read some blogs and maybe post on my own lol!

TV QUIZ =Nightmare!

2007-11-26T20:23:00.000+11:00

LOL have you ever sat and watched tv quiz shows, know the answers and been so frustrated when the person on the show has a hunch and their hunch is correct, but they waste all their lifelines because they are not sure themselves. You feel like screaming at the tv. lol no wonder i try not to watch these shows often, they are not good for my blood pressure I am sure!

Now often they have phone in competitions for the viewers at home to have a go for some quick cash as they say. DS often tells me i should enter these and its true, i havent yet gotten any of them wrong, so tonight, being the last night of the show for 2007, i decided to enter. Hell I should KNOW the answer to the phone in question, the amount of times I have heard Kelley mention MOVEMBER!

Problem is, I am absolutely freakingly terrified that if they do pick me, that i will go totally blank when they ask me the question. You still get $5000 for getting the phone in question correct, but the other question, also worth $5000, well everyone and anyone will see the show, see the persons name on the screen and hear their answer. So to get it wrong on national tv, there is my worst nightmare lol.

But then, even $5000 would make my life so much better at the moment, so lets hope they call me and lets hope i dont make a total fool of myself lol, cause God only knows I could do with that money badly (as could we all in this day and age I am sure) to fix the car, pay off debts, stock up the pantry properly etc etc .

I think I should enter a few more competitions that involve email or mail lol, so much less stress, so if you know of any legit comps to enter, let me know lolol.

Edit: LOL well it wasnt me, but lol if anyone in australia didnt know the answer to that question there is something wrong lolol.

To Sleep or Not to Sleep

2007-11-20T05:55:00.001+11:00

Lol well sleep has always been an issue for me or for people around me. For the most part, its more of a problem for other people who seem to think that me being awake all night is bad, simply because it isnt the same as the majority of the population. Doesnt matter at all to them that my best work is done at night, my housework is more consistently up to date when done at night, and that I am by far a safer driver at night, not that I am unsafe during the day, but you try getting up only 2 hours after you went to bed at night and see how safe you feel you are, are your reflexes slower? Thats what I worry about when dragging myself out of bed at 8.30am to do a school run.

My lack of sleeping to societies ideals of acceptable hours is not from lack of trying.

My father apparently tried his damndest to get me to sleep each night, reading book after book, using all the tricks like warm milk, dimmer lights etc, apparently in the end he gave up, fitted out the loungeroom with a comfy chair for him, plenty of toys and books for me and locked the both of us in there so he could doze in the chair secure in the knowledge I couldnt dissapear or harm myself whilst i ran round him in circles all night, building towers with blocks and "reading" to myself. This is what has been described to me as my nightly activities as a toddler.

As a child and older teen I spent most nights awake, reading or simply laying there. For many years terrified of the dark, so totally unable to fall asleep without a light. I would fall asleep shortly after dawn and then have a full on day at school to come home and nap somewhere during the afternoon (anywhere in fact, i fell asleep in a tree and rolled out of it, only a metre to the ground, but I still remember the shock of waking up hitting the sand in the sandpit face down).

After having children, my nighttime wakefullness was useful, with my first child not being able to wake himself to go to the toilet until he was 8 years old, I spent many hours either changing wet sheets and wet sleeping child or carrying (and then puppet walking as he got bigger) a still sleeping child to the toilet as well as catching the errant sleepwalker to make sure he didnt pee in the dishwasher or next to the toilet etc. My daughter while being able to toilet train herself quite early, often needs asthma reliever medication during the night and the errant sleepwalker was quite severe with his night time asthma as well as night terrors, so being alert and awake all night was much easier than trying to sleep and getting broken sleep.

This however was not "normal or acceptable" in the eyes of my ex, and got me quite a bit of harrassment, put downs and even punishment (having him not speak to me for days etc). It also went against the grain of family members who considered me lazy and abnormal for sleeping during the day.

Currently my night time wakefullness serves a purpose, the study for my degree, which is not easily acheived with kids awake and asking questions or bugging each other, or even just playing and occasionally requesting snacks, so it is much easier to study after they have gone to bed.

My dbf is more accepting of my sleep patterns, although gets irritated when he wants company and I cannot keep my eyes open no matter how i try. He does accept it helps with the study but at the end of the semester, when i am on "holidays" expects me to be around more during daylight hours.

This is where the tricky bit comes in, Sleep Retraining. It takes several days to turn my pattern around at the best of times, often it takes longer. This time around it is taking longer, it appeared to have worked after just 5 days, and then after 2 nights of "normal" sleep, my body reverted (partly in blame is the power failure that turned the fan off, which woke me early and then I couldnt go back to sleep that night).

So at the moment I am getting tired at 11pm, but cant actually sleep. Lying down is restful for the body, but my brain goes absolutely haywire which eventually ends in me having to get up. The worst part is, that this is the first time in years that I havent HAD to be awake most of the night due to Mr Moo having nightmares, asthma attacks, sleepwalking, bedwetting, toileting or anything else and I STILL CANT SLEEP!! It is totally unfair lol.

To this end I am about to retry a naturopathic/homeopathic remedy, one which covers hormones and a few other things, I can't tell you exactly what is in it, other than it was personally made for me based on blood work, history etc and was meant to try and help balance things like pms, but had the shocking side effect of knocking me out within 20 minutes of taking it (something that none of the heavy duty sleeping tablets ever managed). This unfortunately happened right before exam week in june, so had to be stopped, but now that I dont HAVE to stay awake and study, I shall be once again becoming a guinea pig to see if it can help me sleep, and fix the rotten hormonal imbalances that have been plagueing me for years.

I will bore you all with the details of its success or failure at a later date. At the moment I am heading back to bed in the hope of 2 hours sleep (I did spend until 5.30am in bed, I just havent managed any sleep). Thankfully DBF can take DD to school for me this morning. LOL now I just have to work out how to get housework done on a regular basis during the day without getting sidetracked.

Menu Planning

2007-11-19T17:50:00.000+11:00

Aye Aye Aye what am I thinking??

LOL well Lightening's weekly organisation is rubbing off a little (only just a little mwuhahaha) so I figured I would take up her challenge and attempt a menu plan, BUT don't expect any fancy restaurant labels, lol I have a hard enough time working out a single meal each night that all of us can eat. If I plan for all meals to include DBF, then I have three of us that cannot have wheat/gluten and two that cannot have dairy and one that cannot have egg, two of us that cannot eat fish other than whiting or cod and there is only four of us in total!

SO,

Tonight being Monday, we are having a Corned Silverside (from a butcher who DOES NOT USE WHEAT AS A PRESERVATIVE! UNLIKE COLES & WOOLIES!!) Added to this we will have some zuchinni (bought from farmer charlies as my plant only has baby ones just yet), Cos lettuce (from the garden) and maybe some tomatoes if there are any ripe (i am lazy, i just look out the window and direct DBF as to which vegies/fruits I might like this evening).

Tuesday, hmm well we shall be having Snags (coles does wheat free ones in their normal bbq snag range) and jasmine rice and frozen vegies steamed and then cooked with a drizzle of honey for taste.

Wednesday is no kids night, we are having steak, rice and cooked zucchini with some herbs added and homemade gravy (meat juices, water and a titch of salt thickened).

Thursday, well I will be going shopping as by then we are out of all meat, chicken etc.

So, most likely to be diced Chicken Thigh fillets, Jasmine Rice, zuchini, carrot, Green Thai Curry Paste and Coconut Cream.

Friday, well depending on the weather, we will be going to Little Athletics in the evening, so it will need to be a nutritious afternoon snack when Boo gets home from school, so baked beans for Boo (her favourite lol)and an Omellete with cheese for Moo and Myself. After we come home, we will have a smaller snack, maybe some diced cheese, apple and carrot and some sultanas. Accompanied by a glass of chocolate Milk.

Saturday Diced Chicken Thigh fillets, steamed veg with honey glaze and jasmine rice, all stirred in together to look like fried rice.

Sunday meat of some description (steak or mince if its cheap enough), garden salad with vinaigrette dressing.

Ok well thats the plan, will see how we go at sticking to it. At least tonights will be ok as the corned meat is currently cooking away.

Which Harry Potter Character ARE YOU??

2007-11-19T03:00:00.000+11:00

Ok well thanks to FrogDancer for the link,

Apparently I am

Which HP Kid Are You?

Mwuhahaha I should have known really Aye?

THE BIG 8 MEME

2007-11-18T16:57:00.000+11:00

Tagged by KELLEY over at MagnetoBoldToo!

8 Things I am Passionate About

My Kids - They are parts of me, they always come first.
My dream land & home - I want to just pack up and disappear into the outback, no traffic, smog, noise (well there will be natural noise, that i don't mind), no blaring street lights all night.
My SEXY MAN - who will read this and get cranky that I called him that :P
My degree - I will be a Registered Nurse by the end of 2009!
My Country - WHY DO WE NEED TO DOWNGRADE OUR HEALTH SYSTEM & EMPLOYMENT SYSTEMS JUST TO BE MORE LIKE AMERICA MR HOWARD???
My environment - Why do we need to use and abuse our planet?
Good Hygiene - I was born to be a nurse lol cause i cant stand people not washing their hands after toileting or playing with pets or gardening etc.
NO SMOKING - it doesn't just hurt you, it hurts people around you, like me who cant (and hasn't other than 10 mins the night i turned 18) go to nightclubs without a trip to the hospital just because other people smoke in enclosed spaces or in front of the only door into the shops etc, causing people like me to have asthma attacks etc. If you must abuse yourself with chemicals, choose one that only hurts you - eat heaps of apple seeds or lick a toad/frog etc!

8 Things I want to do before I die

Get my 100+ acres & live in a big shed home with no close neighbours or traffic
Give my kids what i didn't have - nice weddings, help getting their first home, grandparents to babysit or help with sick kids, someone to confide in.
Visit Ireland, England, Scotland to drool over accents and quaint architecture
Visit Ethiopia to see the archaeological wonders and to eat really hot Dorowot with traditional Teff Enjerra's.
Visit Egypt, see archaeological wonders and visit one of my friends from high school.
Find Tammy Dunstan and say sorry for standing there and not stopping the so called popular girls from humiliating her when we were 14.
Have my dream wedding, before the eyes of god, family and friends, but no idiotic govt paperwork.
Tell centrelink (the system, not the staff) to go shove their paperwork and regulations cause i don't need them ever again!

8 Things I say often

SHUT UP!!!! I can't hear myself think!
I told you to GO TO BED!
WASH YOUR HANDS!! WITH SOAP!!!
What part of NO do you NOT understand????
Hurry Up or you will be late for (school/soccer/athletics etc.)
(said to DBF) It's YOUR fault I'm a hormonal mess, You didn't give me enough Sex today!
I NEED MORE CHOCOLATE!!!
Please please please .. make me a coffee??

8 Books I have read recently

The Man in the Brown Suit - Agatha Christie
Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie
Concepts of Altered Health States - Porth
Pharmacology for Professionals - Bullock
Anatomy & Physiology - Marieb
Anatomy & Physiology - Martini
Pharmacology - Bryant

Currently reading one of the Xwing series in the StarWars sagas.

8 Songs I could listen to over and over

YOU - Evanescence
You are the wind beneath my wings - Bette Midler
Summer Rain - Belinda Carlisle
Can't Fight the Moonlight - Leanne Rimes
Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy - Big & Ritch
Welcome to the Jungle - Guns & Roses
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Anything Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, The Corrs, DIXIE CHICKS!, Faith Hill etc

8 Things that attract me to my best friends

Honesty & Openness
Friendly personalities
Down to earth attitudes
Willingness to help friends & family
Loyalty and devotion to their children
Acceptance of me the way I am, who I am etc
Interesting, intelligent, enquiring minds (they don't have to be rocket scientists, intelligence comes in many forms!)
Able to chat about anything, whether it be religion, poo, kids, sex experiences, the weather, men, politics, money, clothes etc and be OK with each other having their own opinions, sharing opinions but not forcing them on each other.

8 people who should totally do this meme
(if you don't have a blog of your own feel free to do it in my comments section!)

Robyn
Kirstie
Nicole
Chookie
Precious 1
Lightening
Meg in the Mountains
Anyone else who would like to!

Holidays Here I Come!!

2007-11-10T01:45:00.000+11:00

Well today was the last exam for me, for this year anyway. I am soo tired mentally and physically that it was just a huge weight lifted to finish that exam. I still dont have my results, will be checking madly until December 3rd when they are officially released (but i still get unofficial results via unit assessors and also my essay will be posted back to me with marks and comments, and hopefully these will be soon).

I was thinking today that "i just have to get this exam done and then I am on holidays" over and over as my mantra to stay calm before the exam and while waiting for everyone to be seated and ready and for the start to be announced. That was thanks to one of the girls who wrote a repeated mantra in one of her emails to FIA last night.

So now i have at least 13 weeks with no study needed (might do some anyway just as prereading for next years units) so time to destress, start eating more regular and consistent meals (and hopefully lose a few kilos along the way), decrease my caffeine intake (*lol Kelley dont fret, its just for the holidays while i try to shed kilos, as soon as uni starts back it goes right back up to keep my from falling flat on my face during classes) oh and maybe get some more sleep.

I would also like to fix up the hallway cupboard, move linen back into it from my wardrobe, which would then allow me to fit my clothes in there (instead of the floordrobe). I then have to empty my room, get an electrician in there to rewire the lightswitch (which i have to reach above my head to turn on and off) down to a more reasonable height, install a new ceiling fan (because mine on high is like anyone elses on lowest speed and we dont have aircon) and install new ceiling lights (because the one on the fan shits me when trying to read with fan on and the light sways back and forth lol). Then I can patch and paint the walls and trims and get the carpet people to come do my room (hallway and kids rooms already carpeted for nearly 2 weeks now, its lovely) and then move everything back in, culling and sorting the chaos as it goes back in so that I can have a nice clean tidy uncluttered room too (and maybe have somewhere to put my sewing machine for easy use).

Then I have to empty, clean, patch and paint the loungeroom and dining room and the few little bits of wall in the kitchen (its all one big U shaped room really) as well as all the window trims before getting the carpet guys back again to put carpet in the loungeroom and one of those little crossover doobies between the carpet and the dining room tiles.

This I hope to get completed before christmas lol, not that there is any rush as there is no parties here, no family to drop in and noone but the kids, DBF and I to notice, but then it is for us to enjoy, so doesnt really matter if noone else sees it. The only reason I want it done before Christmas is that I also need to empty, patch, paint the laundry and retile the floor (and at least two tiles high along the bottoms of the walls) and build myself a broom closet in there, before moving to the bathroom.

The bathroom is half done and driving me crazy. I havent had a bath or shower in my own home since April 2004. It is a long saga, but it has come down to me doing all the repairs myself, and so far i have removed all damaged and rotting walls, supports, bathframe and bathtub. Rebuilt the supports and bathframe and installed the bathtub.

This however doesnt mean its yet useable, it needs to be plumbed into drainage which requires two people, one in the bathroom and one under the house, and then the gap filler sprayed in to stop the spiders, roaches, rodents from getting under the tub. DO YOU KNOW HOW OFFPUTTING IT IS TO SIT IN THE BATHTUB WHILE A RAT CHEWS ON THE DRAINPIPE FROM UNDERNEATH YOUR FEET AND THE WHOLE TUB VIBRATES!!

Then i have the lovely job of cutting all the cement sheeting (waterproof fibro stuff) to size and walling in the underneath of the tub and replacing the walls around the tub. They need silicone beading between the bottom of the sheets and tub, membranes in the corner and all coated in waterproof, nonpermeable membranous goo.

Once that is done I can look at the tiling of all that sheeting. I CAN do it myself BUT I DONT WANNA!!! My grandmother and Aunty have helped with the cost of the materials i already have and have offered to help towards tiling, but so far the only quote i have (tiles and grout included) is for well over $1000. Considering I can buy all the tiles and glue and grout for $400 max, I am having conniptions about paying over $1000. Will be getting more quotes when I am closer to that stage.

the final stage is getting the glass screen wall made and fitted for the end of the tub as it is a shower/tub combination, fitting a rod for the curtain to go from the wall to the screen and finally putting all the taps and shower head etc back into their places.

THEN I CAN HAVE THE MOST LUXURIOUS EXPERIENCE IN THE WORLD _ A LONG SOAK IN MY BATH IN MY OWN HOME!!!!

Right, well off to bed early tonight, going to start my holiday health kick with trying to get more sleep.

Happy Weekend Everyone!!

Whats in Mr.Moo's Head??

2007-11-10T01:20:00.001+11:00

Whats in my head? What a strange quesiton. Well what I think thats in my head is all of my nine and the quatar (3/4?) life expirense and all my thoughts but who really knows. Who really knows whats in my head. Ther could be millions of trees of infomation or there could only by one gigantic evergreen tree that sprouts infomation every day. Or ther could be a ginte manshon with lots of little rooms. Each room has its own thing licke a room for vidio game memorys and another room for other memory. I have absolutly no idear what is inside my head. Ther could be a ship load thresnur boxes full of memory or maby thats just my amaganation working over board. Not that its my amaganation that is inside my head.

Parental Note : LOL couldn't resist, had to share this with you all. When i asked him to write about what is in his head i expected answers like brain, grey stuff, water, blood, eyes etc as he is quite interested in my physiology and anatomy posters and loves Mr.Bones - our resident loungeroom skeleton. The mind of the 9 year old is quite amazing, I loved all his analogies and the fact that he uses them together, ie a ship load, treasure boxes and overboard in the one sentence and a mansion with rooms and a forest compared to a single tree. I am blown away literally with this page.

Why Happy Mums are more preferbal.

2007-11-10T01:06:00.001+11:00

Happy mums are preferibal over angry mums because thay will smack when there angry but thay will give gags (pn : i think this is meant to say hugs??? lolol) when ther happy. When thay are happy thay might allso give you privilges and treats. Mums arnt usually angry exept when your grumpy and when you are naughty. We all love our mums and our mums love us but when we be naughty our mums just hate it because they think everyone who is around us is thinking what badly behaves children thay must have a teribal mother. So thats why thay get cranky with us & thay love good behavior and might try and give you a resonble sise present if you are good for a long peiriod of time just like me Mum said she might hire Transformers tonight. Thats why I love Happy Mums.

Parental Note : PMSL I HAD TO SHARE THIS ONE. DS was bugging me and driving me crazy on monday just after my exam and my brain was just too tired to think of an exciting journal topic, so I growled out that he could write why he would prefer a happy mother to a cranky one. I must admit to not believing that half the stuff I tell him actually sinks in, but apparently the good behaviour when in public lecture took hold in there somewhere, now if it will just put itself into action the next time we go grocery shopping!!

For Precious_1 from Mr.Moo aka DS9

2007-11-10T00:54:00.001+11:00

Playing Fire bugs is very dangerous because you could burn your self with the stick you are using to play fire bugs. Or you could set your clothes on fire and that is defenetly not good or you could burn the trees around you while you are playing fire bugs. Or you could set some dry grass or sticks on fire. Never Ever Ever play fire bugs without a perant or gardions permition and super visrtoion. Allso never ever ever put a smoldering stick on the ground unless you put it on a peas of cement that close not and wont be any.

Parental Note : I havent corrected the spelling mistakes and the last sentence had me straining my brain and eyes trying to work out the last six words in the chicken scrawl it was presented in. BUT it seems DS got the general message about playing Fire Bugs (he says it as buggies).

Feast or Famine - part 02

2007-11-08T03:55:00.002+11:00

(left) my clivia finally flowered
(right) my table arrangement, all from my gardens.

Vegies, fruits, edible natives. We have loads of them and the front garden is such an ecclectic mix that most people dont believe it til they see the pumpkins snaking their way through and over the calistemon, the citronella geranium, the gooseberry bushes, up and over the 3 metre tall moonlight grevillea, getting tangled with the nasturtiums and lavenders and the leaves of the strawberry plants popping up from inbetween.

Add in my favourite herb, a kaffir lime, rocket, more gooseberries, some more grevilleas in a few different shades, a very mature lomandra, and many many other plants as well as some little rock paths, a garden seat hidden between the lomandra and the beautiful and fast growing melaleuca and my favourite little purple flowering seaside daisies.

Feast or Famine - part 03

2007-11-08T03:55:00.001+11:00

Then the fenceline right at the front, well it was built as a brick retaining wall when the house was built, to cover over the septic tank (long since out of use) and then one of the previous owners decided to put a rustic wooden farm fence up. He was going for the OK CORRALL look (according to another neighbour) but thankfully didnt manage to find (or took with him) the metal nameplate to complete the look. This i have masses upon masses of the most gorgous bougainvilleas growing. DBF doesnt like my Bougs, but he works around them (and he does admit the flowers are very spectacular enmasse).

These were taken during one of the recent hail storms, poor garden.

Feast or Famine - part 04

2007-11-08T03:52:00.000+11:00

The back garden is different, it is one backyard but garden wise it has several different sections. First there is the original garden wayyy up the back, it goes the full length of the back fenceline, which is reasonably long and borders three different houses from the next street. This original garden has a mature macca tree, mature mulberry, a number of banana trees (mainly ladyfinger variety), several palms (that i forgot i had because the macca had grown around them lol) and one golden penda tree that has NEVER flowered in the 7 or 8 years since i planted it, yet it is most definitely a golden penda and very healthy.

You can see the frames that will eventually be my chookhouse. Its just taking me a while between renovating the inside of the house, kids, life, uni (exam week this week) and all the rest of the stuff, let alone the rain and getting the materials together (the posts and small concrete pats were new, but the rest of the frame will be wire, corrugated iron and other materials i already have lying around (literally cause i dont have a garage or shed to put them in yet).

Feast or Famine - part 05

2007-11-08T03:51:00.000+11:00

That garden originally did have a mature orange and a massive mandarin tree, but those were both systemically poisoned with malathion by a previous neighbour (who thought he was helping) and the future fruits were not only bitter to taste but caused the eater to vomit uncontrollably for hours, so both trees were totally cut down and destroyed as there was no way i was having my then small (toddler) son eating one of those fruits. See the pic below, well the massive big tree in the top left of the pic, that was the mandarin tree, it was at least 5 metres tall and twice as wide.

It also now has a heap of golden canes that are slowly thickening up and growing taller and will eventually screen out the houses behind us. Also up there are two old variagated ficus trees that along with a few others in the area, all died off at once (age?) and are now in the role of trellis to support my choko vines. Whatever chokos drop from the vines the cattle dog eats, she is very self sufficient in this way and we dont mind her eating the chokos when she seems to enjoy them so much. As well as the slab which at the moment is used for storage of materials such as tiles and the kids like to build shanties whenever we have large sheets of cardboard.

Feast or Famine - part 06

2007-11-08T03:50:00.002+11:00

Then there is the east fenceline, that originally i couldnt see past as the neighbours yard was full of mature plants, until she passed away and the new owners levelled the entire yard. Now i can see at least ten houses i never wanted to see, including one whose occupants drive me up the wall, caterwauling the most horrendous songs and destroying even the best songs all day and night and in summer with windows open, it makes it a nightmare to spend time in my own yard.

So we prepared and planted a LARGE section with different citrus fruits, several oranges, several mandarins, a bush lemon, another lemon (unknown species, it was $3 from the nursery as it had lost its tags, so they knew it was a lemon but not what kind and therefore couldnt sell it at normal retail cost), a variagated cumquat (i love these things and so do the kids, best form of sour lolly ever lol) and Dear Sons pride and joy, his Lemonade Tree, that he paid for out of his own money and this year it had its first ever fruit, just one, but for a 1 year old plant, hey thats not bad (we nipped all the other buds off to get it to mature better before bearing too heavy a crop). Intermixed is the rampant sweet potato, the line of lavenders, and some acacia/golden wattles (which i managed to kill most of the first time round by planting them in the manure rich soil that the citruses like, so the survivors were moved a metre out into the yard and are slowly getting back to normal).

Now this "screen" isnt blocking things out overnight, but by next year, they should be tall enough that i dont have to see the singing freak (see my profile for the type of songs this guy sings and you will know why i dont like my kids hearing him) AND even better, they will have nice crops on them, providing further hail this summer doesnt strip all the flowers off.

Feast or Famine - part 07

2007-11-08T03:50:00.001+11:00

In the centre of the yard is our mango tree (getting close to 3metres tall and going on 3 yrs old now as well as being grafted, so we are in hope its about to fruit) and our nectarine and peach trees (they had such lovely flowers and masses of fruit til it hailed, then all the fruit hit the ground and before we could rescue said fruit, our blasted cattle dog ate the lot of it (lol last year she ate all the pumpkins off the vine and the year before all the roma tomatoes). There is another citrus in that little configuration too, but for the life of me i forget what it is. There was also the chocolate sapote that had been transplanted there to try and save it (was originally with the citrus acacia line but suddenly went downhill) but it didnt survive.

Feast or Famine - part 08

2007-11-08T03:49:00.000+11:00

Just below this center garden is a small row with a few lillypilly trees (the survivors of the original six, which the border collie decided to dig the rootballs out of the ground one hot summer day) and a couple of calistemons. These are just behind my retaining wall (which i designed and built when DS was 4.5yrs and DD 18mths). This retaining wall then has a small row below it with my "WHITE GARDEN/SCENTED GARDEN" that contains my three gardenias (presents from DBF) and four chinese star jasmines.

Feast or Famine - part 09

2007-11-08T03:27:00.001+11:00

Infront of the Scent Garden, I had a flat area that housed the kids swings and trampoline, until DBF decided to turn it into a vegi garden (tramp and swings now on slope between the mango garden and the slab). He made quite a nice garden really (DD then 5 helped trench it and dig in around 100kgs of well rotted horse manure, she is rather handy with a shovel and gets very upset if she isnt allowed to help, unlike DS who would rather lay on the trampoline with his latest book lolol). It has had quite a few successful vegies in it and then it was overtaken by his sunflowers, which for some reason he didnt expect them to strike or grow (old packet) and ended up with around 100 fully grown sunflowers. He has just recently cut all but one of these down to the ground and chopped them into inch long peices and thrown back into the garden (he cuts all his mulch by hand with secateurs, lol even palm fronds end up having this done to them).

Now as the title says, We have feast or famine here at the moment in this particular garden bed. At one stage we had soo many bok and pak choys that half of it was given away to friends, i used roughly 1/4 of it and the rest was added to the compost as extra fuel (and the compost ends up being used back in the garden anyway, so very good recycling lol). Then we got hit with bad hail (well our place did pretty good in consideration to downtown where a lot of cars and buildings got written off) but it hit our tomato plants so hard that rather than growing they all started dying back, but as with natures self defense mechanism, they decided to bear as many offspring as possible and we ended up with zillions (i literally had to sort through 8kg of tomatoes from one days harvest) that went from green to ripe to rotten in one or two days. This kept going over a week or so period and we couldnt harvest them fast enough let alone give enough away, so there were at least 10kg that were recycled (and plenty that i threw out the window randomly into the vegie patch while sorting rotten from ok to reclaim my kitchen sink back again, which means there will be multitudes of new plants sprouting soon).

Feast or Famine - part 10

2007-11-08T03:19:00.000+11:00

And last but not least, there is beside the west end of the retaining wall, two large areas meant to be steps/path to where the doors of the garage will eventually be when i can afford to put one on the slab. However, at teh moment the top stair is full of parsley, carrots and potatoes as well as weeds i was informed the other day. Well not my fault lol i cant even see that garden anymore, because the one below it now has 3 metre high sunflower forest (yes more sunflowers lolol).
Before they grew

and two weeks ago when we nearly lost the dog in there and take into account, this is a fully grown, normal sized, 6 yr old NZ Border Collie, NOT A PUPPY!

Taken tonight (its raining) with back spotties on and these are all viewed from my kitchen window lol.

The Actors Studio 10 Questions Meme

2007-10-19T05:19:00.000+10:00

1. What is your favorite word? I love you Mum ( i know its not just one word, but its the very best thing i get to hear each day).

2. What is your least favorite word? Swear word starting with C***. Not that anyone i know personally says this, but drunk bastards round the area like to yell it at people. To me its the most derogative term for a female of any race or culture.

3. What turns you on [creatively, spiritually or emotionally]? Umm magpies singing, birds at dawn, scent of rain coming and amazing fresh smell after rain on the garden.

4. What turns you off? People smoking cigarettes, especially pregnant women, I just want to slap them. Ohh and seeing (and having to walk through) a bunch of nurses and medical staff standing on the footpath outside the hospital to have a smoke now that the hospital and grounds are no smoking areas. How the F**K can they smoke when they see all the people with cancer, emphysema, COPD, cardiac disease, gangrenous limbs from toxin build up in extremities, and knowing that all these things are caused by cigarette smoking!!

5. What sound or noise do you love? Hearing my kids playing together nicely, rain hitting the metal roof out the back.

6. What sound or noise do you hate? Mosquito buzzing when i am trying to sleep & My dogs barking/howling/whinging every twenty minutes when the next siren goes past, especially at night when i am actually tired and trying to sleep and have to keep getting out of bed to shut them up before someone calls the police/council etc or the shift workers and early rising neighbours get peeved.

7. What is your favorite curse word? SFA (Sweet F**k All!)

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Architect and/or Engineer.

9. What profession would you not like to do? Teaching (had enough of it with my first bach of primary prac, didnt want to do anymore).

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
Your grandparents and everyone you love (including pets) are waiting for you just over there.

8 random things from my kitchen...& More about You...

2007-10-18T22:44:00.000+10:00

Ok well tagged for this by Nicole , lol well my kitchen, hmm good thing i cleaned it today, so let's see :

1. Lots of Dead Flowers - I got the most gorgeous bouquet of natives as a thankyou present several years ago now and they are all long dead and still looking gorgeous in the corner near my sink.

2. 2 x cordless drills - because i have three cupboard doors that the hinges broke and bought new hinges for, but can NOT buy a screwdriver bit to match the damn screws the kitchen guy put in them, I even took the entire door into three hardware shops and was told that the particular type of "torque" screw is NO LONGER MANUFACTURED SO THEY NO LONGER SELL BITS TO MATCH IT ARRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!!

3. vegi scraps - waiting to go to the compost bin, they tend to wait several days as the person responsible for them often is "too tired" to do his one daily chore.

4. Loads of magnets, including five copies of the same magnet, because every time i go to the chemist lately they put a new magnet in the bag with my scripts.

5. More flowers - silk variety this time.

6. 10kg bag of rice - waiting for the remaining 2kg of the previous 10kg bag to be used up, so the new bag will fit in the containers.

7. A yellow and red beany teddy bear that says Best Mum.

8. Multiple figurines, including our Chinese year of birth ones, the Snake for DD and Myself, the Ox for DS and the Tiger for DBF.

Lol loads more random bits n bobs as well.

And this one :

More About You

1. Something I do well: Anything that I put my mind too
2. Something I'd like to improve on: Ability to keep my focus, not get sidetracked so easily
3. My favourite food: Milk
4. Three words that describe me best: Nurturing, Bossy, Dictionary.
5. My happiest moment: Um I don't know which one was the happiest, any that involves seeing my kids do well, that makes them beam with self confidence, like Boo getting 2nd place at Zone last year, even though it was her first zone comp and she still couldn't skip with her left leg and had trouble balancing, or two weeks ago when DS made his very own cup of tea including boiling the kettle on the gas cooktop and then sitting down with a look of content normally only seen on a well fed cat.
6. The most important thing in my life right now: My kids!

Autism & other disabilities. My story & DS story.

2007-10-16T03:23:00.000+10:00

WARNING STRONG LANGUAGE and VERY VERY LONG!

Autism is not new to me, neither are other disabilities.

I knew about autistic children when i was in primary school, we used to go visit the autistic school to perform for them (i played third violin in our tiny ensemble/orchestra) and our guide unit went to another local special school on a weekend so that we could immerse ourselves in disabilities (by being strapped into a wheelchair and having to learn to get ourselves around the school, or having to look into a convex mirror to be able to see what we were writing or drawing, try doing dot to dot in a convex mirror, you will never complain again about your own short sightedness or long sightedness) all in preparation for the once a year camp where severely disabled guides and scouts camped with able bodied guides and scouts for several days.

Now don't get me wrong, i am no angel, infact i truly hated the girl that we got lumped with at camp - literally lumped with as the guide leaders didn't like me or the two girls i was with, so they made their very best effort to get us the hardest to care for girl, the one who had full mental function but not very good physical functions, although i swear she wet the bed on purpose twice when we refused in the middle of the night to cuddle and rock her to sleep, (she was 115kg and we were 50 and 60 kg, there is no way we could "rock" her) we were 14 at the time and so was she!. I later found out (via one of the older girls who had had problems with her the year before) that this was just her, she was sexually active by the time she was 9 and liked other girls (and i had no idea what sex even was at that age) so it wasn't just me having problems with her.

This particular girl however is not the norm for any disability, although I have since met other children with heightened sexual interests, including one dear little boy who frightened the life out of his foster mother when he started producing semen at age 5 and took to rubbing himself on bins, doors and people, this same little boy however used to try and bleed himself by shoving his fingers, pencils, anything that would fit, into his nostrils to try and let the blood out as he insisted that the blood was killing him, poisoning him. This poor sweet child (who was also so violent he had to be rehomed after being with his foster mother for 6 years, because he kept trying to harm her elderly mother and her infant son, it broke her heart to do it but what else could she do) was not able to be classified as any one disability, he was on ritalin for his adhd behaviours, he was on high strength sleeping tablets to stop him self harming during the night (he smashed a window and tried slicing himself with pieces of it, he ended up with a mattress on the ground as he would climb up on any furniture and dive headfirst at the ground, but by law they were not allowed to restrain him, even for his own safety).

My own cousin was disabled physically after contracting polio as a baby. She wore those awful leather boots and metal stirrups for many years and made damn sure that everyone felt sorry for her (very spoilt only child from well to do parents) or they paid dearly if they didn't bend to her every demand (us cousins from the poor parents got her handme downs and she made sure she announced this at every party we were made to attend).

So none of this was new to me, but when DS was born and I knew he wasn't right somehow, I didn't know how to get any help. I was 20, unmarried and had a partner who hadn't touched me or spoken nicely to me since the night i told him i was pregnant and refused his offer to pay for an abortion. I had very few friends at that point, so suffered in silence through a pregnancy that was physically difficult and mentally and emotionally exhausting, not only from lack of support but also constant abuse from my partners family (his fathers exact words to him and me, when told i was pregnant - lol obvious by then anyway as i was at least 7 months : My prick got me into trouble with you, and now yours has done the same to you. You and the gold digging bitch wont get a cent from me.)

DS had many things that weren't normal, some i asked about, some i didn't. I will list them in order as i remember rather than timeline order.

His Birth, he was 43 weeks to the day when they decided to induce me, this after i had waters leak sporadically for weeks (my doona still has the stains) and break fully two days (19 days overdue) before hand. But when i asked the nurse could it be my waters breaking she told me i was silly little girl who had probably wet myself and to go back to bed - i was in the hospital with high blood pressure and heat exhaustion. I spent the entire night and the next day in a bed soaked with sticky amniotic fluid and when i complained that the fetal monitoring belt was making more gush out they ignored my request for a clean sheet or assistance to get to the shower (too dizzy to stand without assistance by then).

By the morning of 21 days overdue the ob/gynae decided to induce and put me on a drip at 8am(syntocinon, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy) and told me to go for a walk with the drip on wheels to get it started (he didn't tell me how bad it was going to be when it did), so i waddled from the fourth floor to the seventh floor (with my partner who grumbled about lack of pay from not working) to go visit his father who was admitted there after having an infarct an hour before i had been admitted with high blood pressure (both happened during my partners birthday dinner, so i was feeling sorry for him). I barely made it back down to the birthing sweet before my legs could no longer hold me up the contractions and pain was that strong. By midday i was had it, i couldn't sit, couldn't stand, needed to pee but sitting on the toilet was too painful, the pethidine had no effect on me at all and there was no anaesthetist available to put in an epidural until 5pm, by then my best friend and my partner had to stand either side of me and let me hang from their shoulders as i could not stand, sit or lie down.

After the epi was done, the ob came back for the tenth time that day to check on me and stated that he was going to break the waters to get it moving as it had been too long. He went to break them to find there was NONE left. See the nurses that night hadn't recorded that i thought my waters had broken, so the ob didn't know it had happened. So DS had spent two entire days with his head pressed into my cervix with no fluid to shock absorb.

My cervix finally dilated at 9.20pm (went from 2cm to 10 cms in ten minutes) and DS was born at 9.54, coming out facing backwards (he was backwards the entire pregnancy which is why my stomach is so bad now), with the cord not only looped around his neck, but tied in a "true knot". The survival rate i was told later, is 95% of true knot babies are still born, 4% have brain damage and 1% are ok. DS was considered to be in that 1% and the Ob told me he had never seen a live true knot baby in all 40 years of practice. He cut the cord before DS shoulders were delivered as the knot would have tightened and cut off the blood supply before they could get him out.

He was purple, still and not breathing when they handed him to me and i remember wondering why they wanted me to cuddle a dead baby. They then seemed to notice that he wasn't breathing, yanked him away, did resuss procedures, took him to the neonatal ward for an hour (left me alone on the damn bed with two drips in and unable to move from the chest down and busting to pee but couldn't bring myself to pee on the bed). When he came back he was as pale as a ghost, and looked like he had been beaten up.
He had a haematoma on his head that was bigger than my hand, from where he had been forced by gravity onto my cervix without the amniotic buffer. This caused him to be quite badly jaundiced and took 8 weeks to go down. The pic below is DS at 10 days old, his first night at home and you can see the huge lump that makes his head look twice as big at the back above his ear and just how dark his skin is with the biliruben levels.

My tailbone (already fractured from one of the falls i had during the pregnancy) cracked fully during the birth (fucking painful) and even with the epi so overdosed i couldn't feel myself breathe, i still felt the most incredible pain while delivering DS (and was told i couldn't possibly). Years later (after DD was born) i had to have a hysterectomy (age 23) and was told that they had had to repair my stomach muscles which had been split down the centre vertically and one side had actually twisted (DS and his kicking) and my pelvic floor which had torn away from one end (i told them it hurt when he was delivered and i even heard them snap).

So all in all, DS and I were both rather traumatised by the birth. Even worse, because i had elected to be transferred to the private hospital after the birth (no birthing suite at the private hospital) they put DS and Me in a car at 1am to transfer us.

DS was still dopey as all hell. I was told later by a lovely midwife at the private hospital (who showed me how to breastfeed DS at 2am (no noone at teh other hospital thought to check if i was able to feed him) that the pethidine was the cause of the dopiness and possibly the fact he needed resuscitation.

And people wondered why we spent ten days in hospital and why i wouldn't let anyone hold him or touch him and why i developed PND (which went undiagnosed for the first 12 mths of DS life).

I remember when he was 2 days old, and asking for him to be assessed by a paediatrician because one of his eyes kept rolling backwards into his head. Seeing as his father had fairly strong family history (every male in that family for several generations had to have eye surgery) of having one weak/lazy eye and longsightedness, I was sure DS was the same but was told he was fine. Tell me you can't see that he is crosseyed in this pic, he was 2 days old.He didn't crawl until 14 1/2 mths, and started walking at 15mths. He then walked around bumping his head into things so much that i bought him crash helmets and those padded head protectors to wear. Everyone thought i was insane (and i had lost my confidence in myself by then, so had no idea whether i was right or wrong). When he was two I was getting my eyes reviewed (i am short sighted but don't need glasses unless reading off a board or driving at night and needing to read street signs) I casually asked the optometrist what age they could test kids. The optometrist had a look at him, used a machine that can do auto reads (they use it all the time now before doing manual testing as it can pick up inconsistencies where people try to fake it so to avoid glasses etc) and announced that DS was infact WORSE than his father and NEEDED GLASSES ASAP! He infact was seeing several (five or six) points of vision out of each eye due to flat spots on his cornea, so his brain literally was swimming with images, NO FUCKING WONDER HE RAN INTO EVERYTHING!

Yet this same little boy had mystical language skills, he said his first word (parroted me) at four months old (i had it on video too, but dickhead ex took all my video footage). He said "BONES" after i asked him did his milk have bones in it (he choked). at 18mths when his father finally married me, we went on our honeymoon (laughable term really) and took DS with us. We went to every mountainbike (his fathers passion at the time) shop on the gold coast and in brisbane and while driving through tweed heads DS cried out and pointed "BIKE SHOP". Now we couldn't see a bike shop anywhere, no bikes no pictures, so we did a loop and came back around. We finally found it, ontop of a two story building was a sign SAYING "BIKE SHOP" in plain blue writing, no pictures or graphics, just those two words and no actual shop insight (every second shop was vacant at that stage). Apparently DS had learnt to recognise and read those words during that week when we visited all those shops. Noone would believe us though as we couldn't get him to repeat the performance.

Oh and language, well you know some kids when they see a truck they say fuck. DS did this, top of lungs everywhere we went. WHY, well see Daddy drove a truck, a large tilt tray to be exact, so DS knew all about trucks. Walking down a street with him was sheer torture some days, because at the top of his lungs he would point to all the trucks and list them off without pausing, just like this "DADDY FUCK MUMMY FUCK BIG FUCK PRETTY FUCK BLUE FUCK" and mummy is hurrying down the street with head bent, avoiding all the astonished looks from other people and trying to remember where she left her car so she could escape home and hide again. This was at about 10 mths old.

At 12mths, when the PND was diagnosed and the doctor recommended DS go to daycare at least one day a week so i could have time out, the daycarer's were amazed that ds could talk in 5 or 6 word coherent, context appropriate sentences and actually hold a conversation. Now this may have been my fault, because being home alone with DS for 12 months and very limited adult interaction, I spent most of my day talking to DS as if he was an adult. I also found that the only time i could put him down during the day, without him screaming til he spewed again (reflux baby) was to put him in his portacot right infront of the tv with the lion king or Oliver's tail on video and the sound up loud. Then he would lie there fascinated and watch it, leaving mummy free to go to the toilet with two hands rather than one holding the baby and the other to do what needed to be done (became very adept at one handed stuff during that first four months). I spent hours singing with him, reading him books and poetry, talking with him, playing games with him. I remember the early childhood nurse remarking that my bond with him at 6 mths was a lot stronger than any other mother child bond she had seen and that she had witnessed how well he reacted to my talking to him, yet sounds around us and colours and objects he didn't appear to notice at all, even when he ran into them.

Most of our early days were spent like this. DS would go to bed at 10pm, he would sleep soundly until 8am every morning, would not wake to feed, even when i tried to wake him (i had dreadful mastitis because of this) and then from 8am until 10pm, we would have 15min cycles. 5 minutes of screaming, 5 mins of feeding, projectile spew up to 6 metres away in whatever direction he was facing (i wore old towels most of the day) and 5 mins of him sleeping (unless i put him down).

So i learnt really quickly several things.
1. DS urine burnt his skin, so every single wee meant a nappy change, even for a tiny drop. 4 dozen cloth nappies lasted me until 3pm on the first day he was at home. his father arrived at 4pm to find me frantically trying to calm DS down while he screamed and screamed and liquid ran down his legs. He went to the shops and bought another 4 dozen nappies. He also reacts to zinc, it made the nappy rash turn into red raw blistered skin.

2. Giardia is actually catchable in australia, even though the paediatrician we saw in the childrens ward when DS was 10 weeks old, had 41 degree fever, constant diarrhea, dehydration and had gone from 9 pound 4 ounces at birth to 8 pounds at 10 weeks, told me that Giardia couldn't be caught in australia as we are a civilised country. I knew what it was though because my father had it too (*and he gave it to DS unknowingly after arriving back from indonesia). I must admit to laughing my head off manically several weeks later when the 6pm news announced that Giardia had been found present in the Sydney water supply. SEE DR SMILEY, GIARDIA IS NOT JUST A 3rd WORLD PROBLEM!

3. Reflux is not easy to deal with. The medications make the spew more slimey, which inturn makes it very hard to hold onto the wriggling, back arching, kicking, screaming baby that is now covered in slimey spew. It also is difficult to stop the baby from drowning when he spews while lieing on his back and it goes up in a fountain and straight back down onto his face. It does not suddenly dissapear, it is just that the projectile vomiting stops and it becomes sneaky reflux and burns babies oesophagus and lungs and causes chronic asthma and recurrent pneumonia's.

4.
Babies who continually smash their heads against the carseat, floor, midair, mums face and anything else they can touch, are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who do this whenever distressed, told no, put into their cot or their highchair are NOT NORMAL!
Toddlers who roll both eyes back into their head while telling you that "M is DEAD! I am bob the builder and M cant hear you!" ARE NOT NORMAL!
Babies who refuse to eat and actually starve themselves are NOT NORMAL!

However i have learnt that telling anyone about these episodes and trying to get help is more likely to get me examined for Munchausens By Proxy, than to get my child any help. This happened when he was 12 mths old and i insisted he was having strange choking fits at 2am each night and finally out of sympathy (i had been at the a&e every night for six weeks trying to get help) the nurse admitted us to the kids ward (unbeknownst to me labelled as mother suspected Munchausens By Proxy). However, in doing tests on DS to prove to me that nothing was wrong, they instead found he was infected with WHOOPING COUGH, which explained the middle of the night coughing/choking episodes. Its just that during the day his asthma meds were controlling the cough enough that he didn't ever WHOOP!

I have also learnt that hospital counsellors can not always be trusted. One of them rang centrelink without my verbal or written permission and accessed all my details (by telling them she was from the hospital) and changed my payments whilst i was staying in the children's ward with DS. This resulted in my getting home to several letters from centrelink to inform me of my changes and me putting a complaint into the hospital and the counsellor losing her job. This also resulted in me getting first an overpayment, then a debt, then an underpayment and then a repayment for the underpayment, causing me much more stress than i was already under.

Behaviour has always been an issue for DS. To this day behaviour is a big issue and because we still don't have an "official" diagnosis, people who SHOULD know better, still treat us as if DS is purposely obnoxious and badly behaved and regard me as an innatentive mother who doesn't discipline her rogue child. HELLO I AM STRICT AS HELL!! I CANT DISCIPLINE HIM ANY HARDER WITHOUT RESORTING TO ABUSE! I do however have little tolerance these days for people who SHOULD know DS by now, so if they build themselves a mountain by treating him as if he is purposely being obnoxious and then demand from me a way that they can get off their mountain without DS WINNING, then they can go to hell, because their is NO WAY DS WON'T WIN! If you ban him from joining in, HE WILL LOVE IT BECAUSE HE DOESNT HAVE TO EXPEND ENERGY! If you yell at him, HE WILL SIT THERE AND STARE AT YOU BLANKLY! If you try to guilt trip him, like saying "well the others miss out because of you!" HE WILL IGNORE THIS BECAUSE HE DOESNT UNDERSTAND OR FEEL GUILT IN THE WAY YOU DO!

People assume because he is High Functioning and High Intelligence that he is naughty on purpose. Now sometimes they are right, he is naughty on purpose sometimes. BUT he also has massive fears and these cause him to act out. They are not all rational, like the fear that i will leave him behind. I have never done this, but if i got out of his sight, he would scream like a banshee and try adn find me, even if it meant he ran infront of a moving car to where he thought i went. Even if i was only a metre away from him but out of his sight this happened until he was 8 years old. Part of this was because of his father, his father treats him like a toy, plays for a bit then hands him back, even when he lived with us (til DS turned 6 years old). But he was oncall 24 hours a day, 7 days a week most times (tow truck) as well as working a normal 40 hour week at work (panelshop & towtruck). SO he would arrive home at any hour, then could be here all night or be gone again in ten minutes, DS would hear the truck coming home and be all bubbly and chirpy and run at Daddy as soon as he came in the door (DADDYS biggest complaint was that he just wanted to come home to peace and quiet and why did the kids have to attack him first thing - my response :gee well maybe its cause they havent see you in three days!) and then scream and cry and cling to daddy whenever the phone rang, which meant Daddy walking out the door again. Daddy would simply remove theclinging growth from his leg, climb over the gate (DS was not a climber so we just walked over gates that kept him safe) and go back to work with DS on the verandah screaming DADDY DONT LEAVE ME!! This fear has subsided since we were seperated and then divorced, it took 2 years but i can now go next door without DS panicking and screaming or running out into traffic to look for me. He is now secure because he knows when and where i am going and while i am now mean and wont tell him where, just "we are going in the car, hurry up and get in" I think it is working, he is learning that he doesnt HAVE TO KNOW EXACTLY WHERE WE ARE GOING TOO to be safe and content, he KNOWS I WONT LEAVE HIM BEHIND or if I am going without him, THAT I WILL RETURN and that he is safe with whoever I leave him with.

Other physical issues, well the reflux damaged his lungs, but at age 4 he had his first endoscopy, colonoscopy and biopsy in preparation for a possible Nissen Fundoplication. THANKFULLY we were advised to try more food elimination first, and by 4 yrs 6 months, we KNEW that all the reflux, annorexia, pneumonias, diarhhea, bowel impactions, constant immune problems, anaemia etc were caused by FOOD INTOLERANCE! So by taking out everythign excepting rice, chicken and water, we went from a 4 yr old weighing 10kg who refused to eat unless forced (including needign a nasogastric tube and stomach pump) to 6 weeks later having a relatively healthy looking child that put on 8 kilograms, YES EIGHT KILOGRAMS IN SIX WEEKS! and he was no longer choking, arching his back, having stomach acid go up his throat and down into his airways.

We spent 9 months in total, doing the full elimination diet to find that he is severely wheat, gluten, rye, oats, barley, malt and any starch or glucose made from these intolerant. He is also mildly intolerant to MSG (naturally occurs when you concentrate tomato into paste or sauce) and SOY products. THIS FINDING SAVED HIS LIFE!

You see he was starving to death no matter how much or what we shoved down his throat. I say We but in reality it was just me and him most of the time and DD once she was born. When we removed it all and he went clean, his body was able to regenerate the Villi and Micro Villi and start actually taking in nutrients, which is how he managed to put weight on so quickly whilst eating only chicken, rice and water.

He has had to go through this process a second time due to stupidity on his fathers behalf, because when we seperated, he told DS that the food strictness was just mummy being mean and there was no such thing as food intolerance, so i then had an emotionally disturbed (parents seperated, kids and I had to move out as DH would not relinquish the house for six months, DH father telling kids really awful things, like when he told my 3 yr old DD that MUMMY IS A GOLD DIGGING SLUT!) SO poor DS had to go back on full eat anything diet and 9 mths later he was again, pale, anorexic, impacted with severe diarhea, refluxing, begging to go clean and not allowed until he could have another endoscopy and biopsy (because even the gp and paediatrician told DS food intolerance was real and he didnt listen to them, so we went the whole 9 yards to prove it to him).

So after going clean again, the first ten days is like a heroin addict going cold turkey. It is simply horrendous watching your child shake, sweat, vomit, cry, rage and pass out while going through detox and there is NOTHING you can do to make it better other than sit it out, cuddle them and do things like cool washers for the sweat, bicarb and water to help the impaction pass (which speeds up the detox a little). DS now KNEW what he could and couldnt eat, he KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that Mummy was not just being mean and HE CHOSE to be GLUTEN AND WHEAT FREE! He had to learn to read labels himself as his father first refused to do so an kept insisting on feeding him bad foods, DS also learnt to read and check what his baby sister was eating after she had a mild anaphylactic reaction to egg yolk and constantly had diarhea, vomiting, bad flatulence etc to dairy and her father fed her M&M's for breakfast each time he had them.

He also is missign half of his sternum, this is a physical abnormality that also was not picked up at birth or during the first two years even though we went to the gp and paediatrician almost weekly for years and he was hospitalised at least sixteen times in those two years. It was during one hospitalization that the paediatrician asked me "how long has your son had that skeletal abnormality?" and I looked at him and asked "what abnormality, you have been seeing him since he was born, what do you mean?". It was not long after this that we changed Paediatricians and found the good one who recognised the reflux, organised endoscopies and tests and recommended food testing.

Anyway missing this bone means his heart is not protected and his rib cage is weakened as the lower half of his rib cage connects to NOTHING at the front, directly over his heart. He also has a heart murmur, that we have to be wary of as he gets older. He can NOT play any form of contact sport, even school yard soccer is too dangerous. He does Physical Culture, Little Athletics (scary this year as he will be learning the "flop" in high jump) and SWIMS, although swimming is an issue.

Swimming is an issue as DS has TACTILE ISSUES. He does not like water touching him (although is getting better, he no longer has a total meltdown if he has to go out in the rain), which in one way is useful because while smacking has no effect and the naughty corner is a joke (punishment for teh mother who gets to hold the screaming biting punching kicking scratching child to keep him in the corner), a ten second burst of cold shower water near his head is enough that it only has to be threatened as a consequence and he behaves. However, it also means that swimming has to be relearnt every year at the start of summer, he loses all memory that he got right up to level 6 and squad swimming and goes back to clinging to the edge and screaming and meltdown if you try and help him leave the edge. EVERY YEAR! but within a few times, especially if friends are swimming around him, he will let go and start swimming slowly and last season he even dived into a pool. THIS IS A HUGE ACHIEVEMENT FOR HIM!.

Other tactile issues involve his head, especially his "sensitive sore spot" which unbeknownst to him is where the Haematoma was at birth. This spot can not be brushed or touched or rubbed (NIT COMBING IS HORRIFIC). He does not like his teeth being brushed so hasnt had them brushed more then ten times since he turned 5 yrs old (i got sick of losing tips of my fingers and having dints in my nails where he bit me while biting the heads off the toothbrushes). He can not sleep if there is a sheet, a pillowcase or a doonacover involved, so all his bedding is naked. He can not sleep if there is a mosquito (neither can i so i dont blame him for this at all) as the buzzing is too loud. He has spent years being terrified of the dark (blackouts are also horrific events as he fears the power and lights will never come back on again), so insists on sleeping with a light on, until earlier this year when we finally managed to get him to sleep without a light directly in his room, having light seep from the next room along instead. Daytimes he has issues with glare and brightness and gets headaches, so we have gotten him transition lenses that get darker when they are in bright light and go clear in dim light.

Oh and i could go on and on and on, he is such a complicated child, and i love him dearly and i feel guilty because he often gets 8/10ths of my attention while DD gets 1/10th adn DBF (nearly been 4 yrs now) gets 1/10th.

He is turning 10 years old in January 2008. I will be celebrating this milestone with glee, because it has been the HARDEST ten years of my life (and i did not have an easy childhood either) but DS and I will have survived the ten year mark!

This is not all of our story, there is much much more and its not even begun really. We now are fighting to get recognition so that DS can go back to school, get help such as an aide or things like chew items or fiddle items to help him with his concentration, extra tutilage for his learning disability (reads tolkein but cant spell most four letter words or write them very well).

but with all of this, this whole long rant, it came about from reading another page on an autistic child and all the things they have tried and programs they have been in and books they recommend and I realise i have tried, tested and done a lot of these things too, without knowing why or being told too, i just did them and i think this is why we are having so much trouble getting him diagnosed, because noone really saw all the bad stuff or documented it, and they have no comparison from then to now. I wouldnt change what i did, I am happy having a high functioning child, i just wish the system didnt require your child to be extremely low functioning and/or low iq to be eligible for any help or support.

Ok well that is enough for one post lol, will write more later. This is very cathartic to get this all out. If you have read all of this then you are amazingly patient (and probably have a headache by now, sorry).

HUGS!

More Bling!

2007-10-14T03:15:00.000+10:00

Ok well I have gone and gotten myself an award for being a comment addict or as it was aptly put, a comment-ho LOLOL.

SO I really think this particular award is best past on to Bettina and Nicole! (and even if I can't pass it back to Kelley, she deserves a second one as well ).

Mwuhahaha

Thoughts for Thursday!

2007-10-11T01:20:00.000+10:00

For household use, especially when remembering which telemarketer rang you today :

For Kelley, and all the other mothers whose survival (and children/coworkers survival) depends on mums coffee intake:

And a recent picture of Me:

Enjoy Your Day.

Mwuhahahaha!!!!!

Summer!

2007-10-09T03:35:00.000+10:00

Summer is here.

How do I know this, well even though officially it is still Spring, it is now so hot and humid each day that we have started our seasonal afternoon thunderstorms. Bad enough that today, only our second storm of the season, brought hail, lots of it and some chunks as big as a 2.5kg shot put (i am guessing 5cm diameter) and lots that were golf ball sized. I watched most of these hit my car and my gardens, watched the magpies cowering undercover where they had been caught away from their nest, looking anxiously towards the tree where their baby is. And other than feeling sorry for the magpies and hoping their baby would be ok, I loved every minute of that delicious smelling storm with the cool but not too icey rain and the wonderous smells that a garden full of herbs, fruits and native plants puts off when rained upon.

Is it going to be a hot summer, well I would say so, it is far hotter already than last year was, last year we didn't get half the storms we normally do and last year we only got one hailstorm and that was the week before Christmas. Last year i was still wearing a jumper almost until Christmas.

The plants are a little confused, some of the citrus trees are currently sporting last years fruit, fruit that is a few months old because we had hot days in the middle of winter and they thought spring had come and then they are covered in the now springs new flowers. I am hoping however that with the heat and thunderstorms back to what is normal for this area, that maybe we will get a decent mango crop this year, it has been awful with next to no mangoes the last three years. I can imagine a heaven where unlimited mangoes could be eaten, bathed in and generally lived in.

As a teen i was initiated into the most heavenly tradition, you take a bunch of friends, have a wrestle in a mud bath (generally easy to find when each afternoon brings a storm), traipse down a hot steamy road til you get to the mango plantation, eat them hot and fresh, sun ripened, juices flowing over your lips, face, arms, chest. Once totally satiated, slowly waddle down to the creek and lazily wash the luxurious mud and mango skin treatment off, to emerge an hour later with cool, glowing skin and a totally relaxed mental state. On the way back you pick a bag of mangoes to take home for desert and midnight snacks.

Oh and the humidity, just in time to remind me how urgently i need the bathtub to be plumbed in and the walling done, because i don't like wearing swimmers or swimming in public. Well OK i don't mind night time swimming, but the council doesn't really approve of people jumping the fence at night time, why i don't know, because there isn't anyone there as a lifeguard during the day, and its well lit at night, so what is the difference? So i need to get that bath fixed so i can soak in my cold water and read and relax, oh how i miss that small luxury.

And lets not forget the constant power drops, brown outs they call them, where the lights dim and the computer crashes because all the people in Sydney just turned their air con up higher and us being at the other end of the state at the end of two measly skinny wires, well we only get full power when most of Sydney is asleep, let alone all the places in between. I read a report that was tabled with the NSW and federal government at least ten years ago where they stated exactly why the power system needs upgrading, why areas such as ours can spend hours without any power in summer because of air conditioners increased usage in Sydney and Newcastle. I know a couple of Country Energy guys, i asked them and they told me that nothing has changed, the upgrade was never approved or funded. The other problem is that the two skinny wires we get power from (which like the other day when one failed only half the town had power for four hours) is that the two are not compatible and don't run the same voltages. I am not an electrician, but it doesn't sound very good to me.

I don't even have a working air con unit, although i do have one, it came as part of the kitchen wall, built into the bottom of a window, but it crashes every other appliance and system in the house when the thermostat tries to cut in, so it doesn't get used at all. The ceiling fan and a spritz of water are it. My house is relatively cool, we get a decent breeze most days and if really pushed, I lay under a ceiling fan with a water sprayer, in a darkened room.

Worst of all is Daylight savings. Tell me how this makes my life better. DD who wakes at sunrise each morning will wake an hour earlier according to the clock, and will go to bed while the sun is still up each night, unless i try to keep her up later. And just up the road a bit is the poor Tweed Coast, who have half their town and residents in NSW and the other half in QLD. One half have DST time and the other EST time, but there isn't an identical set of services on either side of the border, some are solely located on the NSW side and some on the QLD side. The poor people who live and work in this area suffer dreadful confusion each year. Just take the mothers that work on the QLD side but live and have kids going to the school on the NSW side.

But all in all, this summer whine of mine, I actually prefer summer, its easier to lose weight when you cant help breaking a sweat while sitting still, its more comfortable to wander around in the skimpiest (or none if possible) clothing rather than having to wear five or six layers to stay warm. The best fruits are available in summer, cherries, mangoes, nectarines, plums oh even thinking of them makes me drool. And the heat makes a salad meal so much more appetising, and that cant hurt the waist any either. Oh and its easier to sleep when warmer, well for me anyway.

Now didn't i warn you this was a ranting and raving blog!

MWUHAHAHAHA!!!!

Telemarketers!

2007-10-08T15:33:00.000+10:00

I spent 45 minutes on the phone with one woman, quite happily wasting her time, after having her call me every single day for several weeks, wasting my time and sanity (which i have precious little of at the best of times). She kept telling me I had won a free phone, but I would have to pay the $30 postage and handling to get it, and I would have to sign up for a $20 or $40 dollar a month contract to use the stupid thing. So I spent 45 mintues asking, well if its free, how come its going to cost me $30 to get it and then another $20 a month minimum to use it, thats not a free phone at all! But Mrs (oh and she kept using my ex husbands last name, not mine, so earning her extra points in my anger system) the phone costs you nothing, it is free. We went round on this merrygoround for at least 20 minutes and then the next 20 was spent on me:”but i already have a good mobile phone, why would i want another one? I cant talk on two of them at the same time? Her: but this one is better AND ITS FREE. Me: What does it have thats better, mine already has internet access, bluetooth, sms, mms, 512mb hdd memory, plays any nintendo game (mind you i dont have any cause each game cartridge costs $70 but i didnt tell her that) AND it works as a personal calendar, notebook and planner and an alarm clock AND BEST OF ALL IT MAKES PHONE CALLS. What does yours do that this one doesnt?? Her: Well its new and its free.

PMSL, since then I have gotten severely annoyed with another one, cause he insisted he was australian and in australia, even though his accent was that heavy i could barely understand him (and i am good with accents) so when i mentioned i wasnt interested he got really angry, so i asked for his supervisor, he said no, so i repeated the request to speak to his supervisor as well as mentioning that i am recording this conversation and that it will be played for the telecommunications ombudsman, that got me the supervisor, who i then repeated the request that they stop ringing me, the supervisor tells me that I am rude and discriminatory because i asked for someone who understood english (hello i only asked him not to call me 20 times and got him ringing straight back 20 times, if he doesnt understand english, dont call me). So then I asked the supervisor what country he was calling from, he insists he is in australia, so I say, well you wont mind giving me your name and the company you work for name then, which he does, i then say well “”" I guess you are in big trouble now, because not only have you and your staff rung me 20 times tonight, you have rung a number that is on the national do not call register, which if you were IN AUSTRALIA you would have known not to call because it is now ILLEGAL to call someone on that register for telemarketing purposes and I have just reported you while we were talking on the Registers website. I hope you have a good day! He hung up and I have had NO calls from them again lol.

Hehe, my cousin worked as a telemarketer for optus at one stage, and DBF brother worked for one of the mobile companies as well. Both of them commented that they got people answering who said “oh well at least you speak English, but I am still not interested”.

My grandmother had (and still does, i actually pity the telemarketers that ring her) a fantastic solution. Years ago she had someone who used to ring several times a day and breathe heavy but never talk to her, so she got one of those really good post masters whistles and blue on it next to the handpeice the next time he called. He never called back. She does this as soon as they say good evening mrs “”" we are calling from xyz to offer you….

My most hated ones are the ones that ring up, say Hello is this MRS >>>> and I say NO, I am not a MRS I am MISS, but you have the first name and surname correct, Who is speaking? They reply with, My name is pete and I need you to tell me your address and date of birth before i can disclose any further information.

GRRRR that sets me off. I go on this big rant about how any damn person could ring me and say that, there is NO WAY i am giving out my address OR my date of birth. How about I ring them and ask for theirs?

They reply with, well if you feel this way then you can ring our toll free number and then give it to us. Hello, anyone can pay to get a toll free service, that still doesnt tell me who you are or that you are legitimate. If you are legit, how about you tell me my date of birth and address and what about the company name you are calling for. I will then look up your company in the phone book or internet and ring you on an official landline.

Their answer, which really peeves me :Due to the Privacy Policy, we cant reveal who we are as that would breach Mrs Such and Such’s privacy.
Me: Right, well DONT RING ME THEN!! SLAM.

Several days later i get a letter in the mail saying that the bank or centrelink or whatever tried to contact me by phone and that i was unnecessarily difficult and abusive.

hehe, you should see the written reply attached with a copy of the letter, which gets mailed back to their head office.

I think the bank has worked it out now, cause now they dont call, they just send me a letter.
I am nasty, I blame my father for this lol cause its his temper i inherited and its his temper that flares when this happens.

What is Physi?

2007-10-06T04:20:00.000+10:00

Just incase you are wondering about my choice of utube videos over to the left. Physi is the short or nickname for Physical Culture. This is one of the sports that my kids do.

In the 1892 Hans Bjelke Peterson (uncle of the QLD Politician), who was soon after joined by his brothers Johannes and Harald, and his sister Marie started Physical Culture as a form of discipline and exercise for men. At some stage young ladies also started doing this sport and by the 1950's it had become a female dominated sport.

This form of Physi has become known as BJP. Although there are a few outside clubs that do similar work but are not associated with BJP.

To this day, a lot of the women and girls that compete still wear that 50's look with pride, they Boof their hair, tan so dark that they go orange and look like pretty female OompaLoompa's wearing leotards. Not all the girls do this, but there is still a huge percentage that do. The younger girls are not allowed to tan or wear more than a smidge of lippy, they also cannot wear the shimmers and fishnets that the older girls and ladies wear.

In 2005 the official reintroduction of boys occurred. However even in its third year, there is still a lot of resistance from the old school girls who firmly believe that boys do not belong in the physi world.

My DS has been doing this sport since 2003, although those first two years he was not officially recognised and was not able to be registered to compete. He did it alongside his baby sister, learning the baby girls work, to help her have the confidence to get up on the floor as the only baby our club had. She happily did anything her big brother did and as she needed to do Physi to help strengthen the muscles in her hips and knees (to stop her feet and legs turning 360 degrees in any direction), DS was encouraged to get up and help her do the work (didn't take much encouragement, he had been wanting to do Physi since he was a baby as our friend and babysitter did physi and he had seen her perform, so when she became a teacher he was going to do it, sister or no sister lol).

Now a lot of people think - oh well you are training your son to be gay (this was an actual comment at the Sydney Boys National Physi Event in 2006 by the lady manning the entry booth when a mother came running up to say her boy had won the event, much outcry happened about this comment and we hope that lady will not be working there this year). Just because my boy is learning to be flexible, to touch his toes, to move with rhythm and grace does not make him gay or will teach him to be gay.

My grandfathers era, all the men went to the dances every week or month, thats how they met the girls. Being able to dance with rhythm and grace meant you were more likely to pick up the best chicks. And most of those men then became the ANZACS, who were renowned for being tough resilient buggers. Tell me dancing made them soft, weak, gay?? So why would it do it to the boys now, and have a look at their work, it includes punching, kicking, pushups, reverse pushups, situps, bounces. Its tough work their routines, even the teachers, who have been doing physi for years, they work up a sweat teaching and practicing the boys routines with the boys. The girls who are lucky enough to have boys in their club, think the boys work is cool and often get up the back of the hall and mimic the boys work.

The girls work is pretty standard, each year they do five routines, all flowing one after the other. They get different music and different choreography each year, but it always has standard positions that were originally designed by the Bjelke-Peterson Brothers as medical gymnastics. Strong yet graceful arms, powerful legs with pointed toes, yet able to one minute look like a swan and the next leap as powerfully as a gazelle. 8 year olds onwards start doing the splits. The 15 year olds through to the Seniors do the most energetic and tough work and then the ladies come onto the floor, their work isn't the easiest, but they are no longer required to do the splits or big leaps, they don't do a frenetically paced dance, instead they do an "impulse" which is like a dance, but sways with the pulse of the music.

If you get a chance, go spend some time watching one of the Physi Comps, the girls are amazing and compete at Zone around Vic, NSW, ACT & Qld and then at National level at Homebush and then the 15's, seniors and ladies compete for the ultimate titles on the stage at the Opera House each year during November. The boys don't have a Zone competition as there are not enough of them year in most zones (our zone has three, the same three that are part of our club), so they go straight to Sydney each October and compete against any boy who has had the ability to attend.

This is why Virgin ticket specials from Brisbane, Gold Coast and Ballina going to Sydney in the months of October and November sell like hotcakes in July and August. Because each level of Competition is on a different day. For instance, my DD has Zone on the 20/21st of October on the North Coast of NSW. The following weekend the ladies and seniors have zone at the same location that DD did the week before, and the ladies are the same day as the Boys compete in Sydney (not great timing as there were a few mums that were going to compete this year that will now be flying their child to Sydney instead). The nearly every weekend in November is taken with the National finals and then the Opera House night.

Anyway, that's just a bit of information whether you needed it or not lol.

Why is it?

2007-10-06T04:05:00.000+10:00

Why is it, I wonder, that in any group where a large gathering of women occurs on a regular basis, that there are the Cliquey elements, the Intermediates (who seem to flow in and out of the Cliquey group, as they wish to) and then there are the Outsiders (the ones that are just there. Occasionally recognised or spoken to by the Intermediates and only by the Cliquey when they need something from them).

There is the constant shifting of loyalties within the Cliquey and Intermediates and the occasional power plays. Bitching sessions are held regularly in hushed tones that are made just loud enough for the outsiders to hear snippets, putting the outsiders in their place, telling them so that they KNOW they are not included. Then there is the LOUD "Everyone can hear it" sessions, so that everyone will KNOW how special, elite and powerful the Cliquey group are.

I wonder this as I sit to the side whilst waiting for my children at school functions, sports events, sports practice sessions, and many other occasions where i see the same women present every time. It is like going back to 8th grade in highschool really, it hasn't changed a bit.

Do men act like this when there are no women present?

In one group i observe regularly, there is also the token male present, the husband of one of the Intermediates. He bitches, carries on, is part of the Cliquey inner circle, and puts on his show of dominance on a regular basis. Puffs out his chest and does his warcry (booming voice of authority). Does he not realise they are making fun of him, letting him behave like an idiot for their enjoyment, that they then bitch about him when he isn't there?

Does all of society act this way? Cause I don't get it. I didn't get it in highschool and I still don't get the need for it now. Maybe that makes me the weird one lol, oh well, I am enjoying my weirdness and have no need to be part of any innercircle.

Pretty Bling

2007-10-06T03:57:00.000+10:00

Just for Kelley, who wished for a prettier one. Will this do??

I would give credit to the original designer of it (i just edited it for my purposes) but it has been that many years I no longer know who originally made it.

Oh and for Nicole, I found a pic of a pretty that would go well in your barn. Now you will just have to work out how to make one for yourself to go in there. Isn't it a gorgeous lady beetle?

Cheers!

Blog Bling

2007-10-04T01:54:00.000+10:00

Right well I am still a little unsure on the rules of the Blog Bling that is doing the rounds, I assume it probably is a bit like circulating emails, except that in this case it is to make more people aware of others blogs. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me here. Anyway I few weeks back, before I even thought about blogging, I got my first Bling, being that I am a serial comment poster (lol sounds a bit like serial pest). So now that I have a blog page, I have somewhere to put the bling and to say Thankyou to the lovely MagnetoBold Too! for thinking of me for this one.

Now I am supposed to send it to ten people who make me smile.

MagnetoBold Too! because she not only makes me smile, she makes me laugh til it hurts, she is very real and genuine, and deserves many more of these Bling.

Chookie because her garden blog is great, she isn't writing it along the lines of, you must do this or that, she is just open and honest and sharing what she does, thinks, feels and knows about gardens. I loved the description of the abandoned house and its rambling garden.

Kin well lets just say I completely get her study habits, I am always amazed at how much she does each day and week and how organised she is. I love your savings challenge too.

Precious_1 very down to earth, lovely lady. I enjoy reading her blog and she really is a Precious_1.

Barn Stories hehe I loved reading this, the trials of small girls, the barn, the plumbers and the cute finds from the emporium. Tis a pity WA is sooo far away from here.

Lightening oh my she is amazing. After all you have been through, you are so much stronger than you realise and such a great mother, even if there are days you doubt it.

Tess your stitching is amazing, I only wish I could do things like that (mine end up in loads of knots). It is very inspiring to see just how much you can focus on tiny stitches even when the rest of your world is throwing you the rollercoaster loops and curves. I think I would just lie there and be catatonic in the same situations.

Lizzie is a font of information and blog layouts, well i think it has changed many many times since she first started blogging, one could get severely sidetracked with all of Lizzie's links and stuff, definitely a good place to go when you need to just chill and not really have to do anything for a few hours.

GirlReporter Lol I love your blog, please keep it up and don't be afraid to take some wild imaginitive flights of fancy or to embellish if necessary, its great, keep writing.

Jess & The Girle wow that Girle can scrap and her mums scrapping is pretty cool too, can I send my girly to learn too, she is 6.5yrs and would kill to have the chance to do that regularly (don't tell her i own scrapping stuff, she will steal it before i ever have the chance to really use it, i need to get more photos printed and buy more bits n bobs for it, let alone finish things like painting the walls and redoing the bathroom before i start any more projects lol)

And I know this makes 11, but this wonderful lady Caroline has some awe inspiring designs and has made herself a business out of it, you go girl.

Ok well my first giving out of Bling. That wasn't too hard, well it would have been if i had to choose who the 10 out of the 11 favourite blogger's I know were.

A very special one to a special lady, who was celebrating her birthday on Tuesday.

Hugs Ladies, You all make my day very bright and even in my grumpiest foulest moments, I can not wait to get my computer back and check out how your day has been and what coffee splurting stories you have in store for us all. ( I can not wait for DS room to be finished so the now repaired second machine can be set up in there, I wont have to fight to use my own computer then lol).

Erin!

Advertising!

2007-10-03T02:36:00.000+10:00

Hehe, am all fidgety now, hmm i just remembered, i have lollies stashed where the kids couldnt find them. mmm off to eat lollies now.

Well, i just picked them up and guess what they have in great big writing on the packet, no its not the brandname, they dont have one on the front at all, its tucked away in small writing on the back near the barcode, on the front is a big circle with 99% fat free.

This makes me laugh and makes me angry at the same time. How stupid do the manufacturer's really think I am, that I am going to look at the lollies and go "oh well they only have 1% fat, so I can eat lots of them compared to that other brand".

HELLO, the main ingredient is sugar, the second main ingredient is wheat glucose syrup (so i probably should not be eating this brand at all). it is a 100g packet and total sugars comes to 57g, which means 57% of this product is sugar. What does sugar become when it is metabolised, well lets see:

Insulin stores sugar for later use, it stores it in two different forms, one for short term storage (quick access, muscle food), the other in long term storage, which is FAT. It doesnt store it half and half either, it depends what you are doing when it is being stored, so if you are running on a treadmill it is going to put it straight into quick access, so burn it as energy, but if you are sitting in a chair writing your blog post, as I am doing, it is going to put the majority of it into long term storage which equals MORE FAT.

So, if I take 57% of sugar and it all metabolises to fat, THEN THESE LOLLIES ARE NOT REALLY FAT FREE!!!

Advertising is so misleading, I hate it, really hate it. Obviously I voice it enough, because my kids now comment about what certain adds are depicting and how its not really true, the add isnt blatantly lieing, but they are not telling the whole truth either and they use pictures that are unrelated to the words so that while they might say the truth, your brain, which the majority of us process pictures first over sound, you see what the picture is saying and dont even hear the words.

Now in justification for myself because i am knowingly eating this 100g of lollies that contains wheat in it, I have read in one of my text books (possibly Frederick Martini - Anatomy & Physiology, but i have at least ten books right next to me on A&P as well as nutrition) that people who bounce their legs and tap their fingers whilst sitting, actually burn fat, especially the leg bouncers because the thigh and calf muscles are the hungriest muscles, so if you really cant be bothered to get out of your chair, sit there and try bouncing your legs really fast for ten minutes, I BET YOU THAT YOU WILL FEEL THE MUSCLE HAS WORKED AFTERWARDS!!! Only problem is the screen shakes at the same speed.

The lollies taste nice though!

Political Correctness

2007-10-03T01:12:00.000+10:00

Please don't say "oh you are not being totally PC" to me. I will probably look at you with a blank or bewildered face until I work out what you are talking about, then I will quietly consider wether a KO or even a Slap will get me charged with assault, whilst glaring at you. Then I will just walk away, while berrating you loudly within my head.

Hello!! PC stands for Personal Computer in my world. PC does NOT stand for Politically Correct Language because there really is no such thing as Politically Correct ANYTHING!! Just watch tv footage of the Japanese parliament, pmsl they throw tables, jump on each other and blazenly brawl on national and international television whilst getting paid for it!! Or our government, they sit there and throw slanderous comments around the room and whoop and laugh and cheer or bang their fists on the table and stomp their feet like two year olds chucking a tantrum. So what right do they have to make up stupid suggestions on what parts of language are correct or incorrect in my everyday conversations.

Here is one stupid one, which hits home every single day because of where I live. I can not call my neighbour a black fella even though he does refer to himself and his family as black fellas, yet he is “politically correct” in calling my family whities!!

I am not WHITE, I am like Billy Connelly, I am pale blue from my scottish heritage, pale pink from my irish heritage, not sure what colour the english heritage comes in, and also have just a hint of black fella from my great great great grandmother who was a pureblood Murray, straight from the detention camps in North Queensland. As far as that concerns me, I AM PURE AUSSIE!!

So just because I am not officially recognised as an Indigenous Person (I don't chose to be recognised as anything other than AN AUSTRALIAN!!) I can not use the terms "black", "blackfella", "koori", "murray", "aboriginal" etc. I must use "Indigenous person", or "person of non-caucasian descent". Hello, have they not heard of the black african american couple who had a white skinned, blue eyed baby?? That baby certainly is NOT from Caucasian Descent, its DNA was tested and ALL of its markers showed it to be of Black African American Descent.

So when I am trying to tell the medical staff or ambulance officer which patient I am hypothetically getting treatment for, I am not going to say that black aboriginal man over there, I am going to say that male person of non-caucasian descent and point towards him, hoping that he is surrounded totally by white people, otherwise they might wonder if I am talking about the phillipino man or the greek man or the very black south african man.

I really don't think it matters what words you use, its the tone of voice, the indifference or obnoxiousness that goes with the words. Swearing is much the same, you can use swearing as humour, just check out my favourite comedian MR BILLY CONNELLY, or you can use swearing in terms of familiarity or endearment - I will laughingly call my friend a Bitch, especially when she KNOWS she has done something I wanted to do first, or has bought the very thing I wanted to buy. Or you can use swearing as a derogatory reference to hurt, humiliate, shock or scare someone.

And even swearing has words that are politically correct. Look at the court case where the accused told a police officer to Fuck Off. He got charged for indecent language (or something along those lines), so he took them to court and sue'd the police. I am not sure on what grounds he actually sue'd on, but HE WON! Fuck is now an officially recognised, politically correct word to use in everyday language in Australia. Go Figure!

Ditz Moments

2007-10-03T00:47:00.002+10:00

Have you had a Ditz Moment??

Lol I have had so many it really isn't funny anymore, well not to me anyway. Although my horrid friends and family think it is, they quite enjoy laughing at some of my Ditz Moments.

The worst one to spring to mind at this moment is my handbag.

The people at Bunnings know me by sight because i managed to leave my handbag and mobile on the checkout and didn't even notice they were missing until my best friend rings me the next day. She says" I got a really weird phone call from your mobile this morning!" at this point I am confused because I was asleep this morning, having stumbled out of bed to find the offending landline (which is cordless and forever getting misplaced). My friend laughs and then says " Bunnings staff found your mobile and handbag where you left them at the checkout last night, so they rang the last person you had called to find out how to contact you". Thankfully that was my best friend rather than the kids school, how embarrassing would that have been lol.

You are now asking yourself how I managed to leave both handbag and mobile behind and not notice, well my keys have a clip on them, so I attach them to the belt loops of my jeans or over my little finger if i am not wearing jeans. My purse was in my handbag, and i had a handful of hardware items and 2 kids buzzing around me. So I have put my handbag down to unzip it and extract my purse, which then required two hands to get cards out, sign for purchase, get receipt, stuff it into purse and try to extricate myself, kids and purchases out of the checkout so the people behind me don't get roadrage at my slowness (I am really clumsy and checkouts just seem to be the one place where i can't move fast enough).

So i carried out my purse and already had my keys, as well as trying to hang onto a then 5 year old who has NO road sense (too busy yapping and singing) and my then almost 9 yr old, who just isnt altogether there somedays, he is unofficially (we are working on the official bit) somewhere on the Autistic Spectrum and he just doesn't see traffic, people or objects sometimes. He ran straight into a pole the other day, it is mounted in a 30cm square brick pilon and is one end of a shade sail, he didn't see it, yet we walk past it almost every single day.

Just getting both kids safely to my car whilst trying to carry purchases is enough to frazzle my brain somedays and this particular day was not an exception. Coming home I have automatically put my purse and keys in their spots, so my head has ticked off the put personal items away.

Unfortunately for me, my purse and handbag are a matching set picked out by DD to match my tattoo. The purse and handbag are mint green with a little fairy sitting in the flowers and has glittery wings etc, and other than a young girl (approximately 5 years old) at the shopping centre recently, I have never seen anyone else with this same handbag or purse, and obviously neither have the bunnings staff, because they still (its been almost 18mths) comment "oh thats the handbag that was left here last year, isn't it?" My best friend still ribs me for it everytime she sees my handbag as well.

This is why it has been hiding in my bedroom for months and I just carry the purse, keys and mobile (i go to Bunnings at least once a fortnight thanks to my forever needing fixing house).

Lol well I am sure I will think of many more Ditz moments to post later on, I will have you all dieing of laughter sooner or later.

Blogs

2007-10-03T00:03:00.000+10:00

Blogs are still quite strange to me, I have avoided creating one until now, the same way I have avoided writing a journal or a diary.

For one, its out there on the net, where anyone can see it, and I am sure there are ways to find even the totally private and unadvertised blogs.

Secondly, my thoughts are often random and strange, my brain constantly shuffles random bits of information through my head, all day and all night. It has kept every single bit of information it has ever seen, heard or read just for the simple purpose of driving everyone around me batty and to deny me the opportunity for blissful slumber.

I quite often stay quiet in group or public conversations, as I have learnt the hard way that NOONE likes a KNOW IT ALL, even if they desperately need the bit of information I have in my head, they still won't appreciate me knowing it when they don't. I have had a teacher hit me over the head with a maths book and a police officer slap me for being able to correctly answer every single question she asked me (i was 10 years old at that point). I have had friends tell me that they can't be seen in public with me as being openly smart is not considered popular.

So with all of this combined, I am wary of putting myself out here in the public forum where people can not only read it, they can comment on it.

However, in consideration of the novel length emails as well as the multiple and large comments I often leave on other peoples blogs, as well as a huge bundle of stress related nervous energy that I can't expel physically at the moment, I decided to start my own blog instead of taking over the comments pages of the people I find interesting.

So anyway, I don't promise to be interesting or funny, I am eccentric and egocentric and quite often I am downright boring. I am also very stubborn (my father and grandmother are Taurus's and whilst I am a Virgo, I inherited their major stubborn streak), fiercely independant, quick to anger but I do not hold many grudges (the exceptions are for people who have knowingly and willingly hurt me or my children or the other people in my life that I care about) . For all of the above, I am actually a nice person, I am caring, I have great empathy for many people, animals, conditions, I am a sentimental fool about people, places, objects, songs (gee and i wonder why i have issues with clutter physically and mentally).

LOL it is as the title suggests, rantings from a self admitted Walking Dictionary, although I warn you in advance, I am not always politically correct, I have had two children and wayyy to much Eostrogen, and I was born a blonde, so if it sounds ditzy or dumb at the same time as being technically proficient, that is just me, I cant help it. I drive most people insane, and I would not be able to live with someone just like me, I would probably murder them within the first week.

This is my blog, consider yourself warned.
So if you don't like it, don't keep reading it!! If you do like it, please let me know.

Hugs!