At the bottom of the Garden

Do you?



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I don't and I've never understood people who do...



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I'm guessing it is a practice which became ingrained in individuals right back in early childhood when they were toilet learning. I imagine parents encouraged bored children to stay put on the potty until their bodies evacuated of their own accord... Think about why parents might do this - possibly because children in nappies are so unaware of their evacuations that they might wander off before finishing? Surely adults are more in tune with their bodies that they don't need to actually hear a splash to know they're finished???




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I can't help but view needing to read on the toilet as a form of disassociation; Oh, I'm not pooing or peeing, I'm just sitting here reading with my pants down... Yeah, you're not fooling anyone but yourself! 'Do you mind if I go read a book in your toilet for a while?' screams 'Right, I'm off to lay a cable!' It's poo! Every sing…

Wah!

I turned my computer on this morning, did a quick search on Google, went and did some other stuff - as you do - came back, browsed Facebook and mid-sentence to the Grumpy Old Man my screen went black!

I tried to turn the computer back on and heard the first click-pop sounds, but no friendly tone saying it was initialzing. I checked the power cord, it was all plugged in properly and working. I took the computer to the kitchen and plugged it in there, but still nothing...

I started to hyperventilate...

I fumbled through the box of receipts to check if I had bought an extended warranty for it when I got it brand new just 17 months ago, but couldn't tell from the receipt.

I rang JB Hi-Fi to see what they had to say. They said to contact the Apple Store online and book into the Genius bar... Online? Well, yeah, but my computer is dead! No, I can't read the screen on my mobile... Sure, I could use my iPad - if I was prepared to wrestle it from he who must be obeyed if you want to ke…

Well, after a fairly crap week, where we've had to decide to cancel Bryn doing the school swim program and Erik and Lukas participating in the year 5/6 fun day because we just don't have the $130 these things would cost, it was nice to end on the week with a bit of fun and long wanted piercing - that cost not a cent!

The opportunity presented itself on Thursday to get a free piercing on Sunday (today), including free jewellery, at an end of year training facility. Basically we'd be helping out graduating piercing students by allowing them to pierce our body, under close supervisor of a qualified and highly experienced couple of piercers.

I could not pass up such an opportunity!

I've long wanted to get the top of my ear pierced. At first I looked at getting a rim or helix piercing but in the end it was more a conch piercing and I'm so very happy with it. My plan is to give it a good six months or so to heal (this area takes up to a year) and then change out the bar …

You know that saying about art imitating life? Well, the other day I was watching Parenthood, with all the family nuttiness and dramas, and squabbling in public and drama, and did I mention drama? I realised I used to watch shows like that think, dear Lord, these shows are so unrealistic. I mean who has all this drama in their life constantly? It's great entertainment and all, but watching it can get tiring at times because just as the characters resolve one problem another one crashes upon them. There is never any respite and everything is always so full on, so dramatic...

So, I was watching Parenthood and suddenly it dawned on me that our household is like television drama. There is always something! If you wrote our lives as a script it would be turned down as too implausible, too over the top.

Too draining.

Take today for example. You know the week we have had, right (if you don't read my last post, I dare you)? Well, today I thought I'd put all that behind me and go …

I've been debating with myself whether or not to write this post for the past 24 hours.

On the one hand I know some people continue to read my blog mostly to cheer themselves up if I'm struggling (lots of grist for the mill here, hey?), on the other hand, I know some of my readers are rooting for us and want to see us get to that better place we are striving for and those readers I am loathed to disappoint, yet again.

Ultimately though, this blog is a true representation of my life and hopefully one day this part of my life will be a dark memory, but it will show how far I've travelled, our little family has travelled, when life is good and things go our way.

Back in August I wrote about my fears about us becoming homeless next year. At the time I was desperately depressed - crying every day and not sleeping kind of depressed. Soon after I wrote that blog post MIL had a tree fall on the roof of her house and while trying to sort out insurance to cover fixing it, discovered…

Having a bit of a laugh at myself today.

I've said it many times before, but never really thought about it.

I don't get people.

I actually don't really like a lot of people. I sort of identify with that saying, 'The more people I know, the more I like my cats.' - except that I don't really like many cats either.

It occurred to me though, that it's a very strange thing to believe about yourself; that you don't get people or you don't like people. It's very strange because ultimately I am a person. Well, in theory, anyway.

Because sometimes I wonder. Maybe I'm not a person? Maybe I'm an alien to this planet and just don't know it. Maybe I was sent here to observe people and one day I'll be teleported back to the mothership and they'll download all my observations from my database (brain). I mean, it sort of makes sense, right, the fact that I wouldn't know I'm not a person because that would help me observe humans more …

Today was a rough day.

It started this morning with the blood-curdling screams of our seven year old. I really hate waking up to that sound and it happens so often.

You see, he knows he will get our attention that way.

Not that we ignore him, but when we're asleep and his big brother won't let him out into the lounge room to watch TV in the morning, or will let him, but then won't let him actually breathe, the seven year old has learned to scream and rage to wake us up quickly to come and save him.

Today started with yelling, and sending Mr 13 to his room. Reassuring Mr 7 he was indeed allowed to sit and watch TV and breathe.

The next task was to talk to Mr 13 again. Yet again. Like all the other agains that have happened over the past nine years since hour long screaming-until-he-passed-out-from-exhaustion sessions morphed into stealing things, mostly food from shops and friends houses and our pantry, and lying about things, and bullying his brothers.

The talk varies but …

If depression is represented by a lurking black dog, then I think anxiety should be represented by a skittish white rabbit. White because it is conspicuous, skittish because it's difficult to grasp and can run away with a person's rational thinking.

Today I've been battling the skittish white rabbit.

It sits there twitching and taunting me but whenever I reach out to wring its neck it hops away, never completely away, just far enough away to be conspicuous and out of reach.

I feel physically sick from it. I mean, as I sit hear there is an uneasy feeling in my stomach which has been around since the kindergarten AGM last night. I went there, to the AGM, on my own. The environment was familiar, and I knew I'd know at least one other face. I did everything right; didn't stumble on my words, had all the right forms and all the right money. The one person I knew came over to talk to me for a quite a while and we laughed - and that bloody white rabbit twitched and twitch…

Today the Grumpy Old Man and I are celebrating fourteen years of marriage. This is apparently our gold anniversary (which seems odd to me because it's not even a big-0 anniversary, but there you go)!

I would say we are happily married. Fourteen years on our marriage is as solid as ever. I guess that is a relative term, I mean, I could be saying we were never very solid and so we're as solid as ever, but no, I actually mean, we have a solid marriage, we work as a team, we're committed (and sometimes we feel like we need to be committed!).

Today is also our fifteenth anniversary of living together and our sixteenth anniversary of being together. I mention these other two anniversaries every year because they're important to me as well!

So, considering our solid, committed relationship after all these years, I thought I'd share some secrets of our happy marriage. Note I didn't say secrets to a happy marriage, but rather of our happy marriage. This is no formula by…

Every November for the past seven years (I was saying six years all weekend, but the Grumpy Old Man corrected me, it has indeed been seven years), we've attended the school fair! 
Generally speaking, I love fairs. I love the colourful rides - though you'd be hard pressed to ever get me on one now -, I love fairy floss (cotton candy to you northerners), I love face painting (on the kids, not me). I love music outdoors and sunshine and seeing lots of people I know and all the smiley, happy faces.

We seem to always have had sunshine, every year for the past seven years!

This last Saturday started like this at 9am when we were heading out to do the fortnightly grocery shop...


But by the time the show started at midday, it looked like this...

Our school fair is very blessed, indeed!

Here are some more photos from the day...












Fair Day always leaves us absolutely buggered! And this weekend we also had two birthday parties. Luckily, the first was for a friend of Erik's so he took …

It's finally here!

The Art Show Opening is tomorrow night and we have a babysitter lined up for the three younger boys.

The Grumpy Old Man took Erik's pieces up to the school this morning, one to be hung in a section for the two Emerging Student Artist award winners and the other to go into the unframed works' bins.

We had to sit and have a think last night about what is coming up after the show because it's been such a big focus in the household in the past three months - and we've been planning for it and looking forward to it since about April.

Erik has a sleepover party on the night of the fair and I think that is a good thing because coming down from all the excitement is often very hard on him. It's another trait we share; the day after Christmas or our birthdays he and I both tend to take a bit of an emotional nose dive. So, at least on the day of the exhibition, he will be occupied with his friends and distracted, so hopefully the dip won't be too s…

Last weekend was a shocker and it's only really tonight I feel together enough to put this all into perspective.

For most of last weekend we were trying to come to terms with the decision of the School Fair Art Show Committee; deciding to exclude Erik after we had already received a go-ahead for him to hang his painting in the framed section of the art show, and in writing no less.

The head of the Art Show Committee had been very clear over the phone; Erik's painting was to be excluded because he didn't meet one of the entry condition for framed pieces. Erik is under the minimum age of sixteen. The school art teacher had never had the jurisdiction to give an exemption for him to participate.

We were heartbroken for Erik - who just wanted to be in the show for his final year at the school, and for his teachers and peers to see his work. We were also livid that a lack of communications - a stuff up at the schools end - was going to result in Erik being penalised, without so …