Todays sunset wasn’t taken from the back yard…I am proud to say! There are more photo’s of where we took them in the photo album…here.

Here’s a small preview!

It was a day like any other day. Sunday. And Tim and I are smack bang in the middle of (possible) ovulation.

That there my friends, should give you enough warning. Too much information…coming your way.

Still with me? You sick freak!

We’ve never done this. Well. I lie. The first time we did this…we got busted. By Tim’s parents. They may not have known it at the time, though I suspect that my bright red embarrassed face might have given it away. And if they really didn’t know, they do now.

I am of course talking about DAY TIME sex.

Jaxon’s not well. So he was happy as Larry watching kids TV and snuggled on the couch with his ducky. He hadn’t moved for at least half an hour…so we thought perhaps we were safe.

We were wrong. Very VERY wrong.

The deed was done. But the act was not over. There was still the obligatory “hug” at the end. Where no one has moved and everything is still in position. If you get my drift.

Time stood still for what seemed like forever, when Tim and I heard a very faint but distinctive “click” behind us from our bedroom door. Neither of us would dare move. Everything, was out in the open.

And then, “Hi”

And Oh. My. God. The Laughter!!!

Neither Tim or I moved. Because Jaxon just walked right on by the cat playing with the fiddle and proceeded to climb up on the bed to play.

If I should happen to get pregnant this cycle…imagine the story we’ll be able to tell our kids! The punch line will be “Jaxon didn’t see it coming, but he sure came close”

I’m feeling very small at the moment.

I’m thinking about Terry a lot. Not so much about how he died. More about what it means to the world that he died. And then how that makes me feel in the “big scheme” of things.

One hundred and something years ago, my great great Grandfather and Grandmother met. They lived and loved. Had kids. Grand kids. And then, they died. They were important people. People loved them. Cared about them and missed them when they were gone.

And I don’t even know their names.

One hundred and something years from now. I’ll be a nobody. Just like Terry is fading in to the past because the only thing that keeps him and his memories alive is my memories of him. Me sharing what I knew of him, and his life, with you. And I don’t do that enough for my own liking. I feel like he was so long ago. So much has happened since him.

But how crazy is that? Everything seems so important to me right now. Terry. Mum and Dad. My past. Tim. Jaxon. My future. What I make of my life. And then one day, when the last person who ever knew me or ever heard a story about good ol Boo dies…it’s just gone. Nothing is left.

One day I’ll just be a name on a family tree.

I’m so small.

Re-post…thanks Emily for helping me retrieve this post

The most annoying thing about Tim and I trying to get pregnant, is my body.

While most woman have regular cycle’s that go for 28 to 30 days…I on the other hand have cycles that could last for as long as 60 or 70 days. It’s never the same. It’s never predictable.

So while those woman who have regular 28 day cycles get to test for pregnancy after a two week wait (the time from ovulation to the time they can test for pregnancy OR get their next period) I on the other hand am stuck here in never never land.

Those woman, have their two week wait, and then they are either going to get a positive or negative pregnancy test. If they get a negative one, they have maybe two or three days before they get their period and the cycle starts again. They can start trying again.

But I am on day 47 of my cycle right now. The time for testing for pregnancy ended two weeks ago. I suffered through the two week wait. I pee’d on countless sticks and I got countless negative results.

But I didn’t get my period. So that disappointment linger’s. Until we can start trying again.

And who knows when that will be.

That’s what makes TTC (trying to conceive) so hard for Tim and I. Not that we get negative tests month after month. But that while other woman get 10 to 12 cycle’s to try per year…I get five or six.

But the time in between is spent waiting for that magical day that most woman complain about…getting my period.

Respost. 22nd Feb

These photo’s were taken on Friday night in pitch black. I LOVE lightning!

Here I was thinking that I would never be able to blog again. With so much to say and not knowing how to say it. Or not wanting to offend people or bring people down.

Little did I know all I needed was a bee in my bonnet.

So what the hell is with other parents thinking it is OK to let their sick child play with my healthy child when the situation could have been avoided with a simple phone call. I’m sorry, but my child has green snot running from head to toe and we wont be able to make it tonight”

How easy is that? What is it with some parents? I once took Jaxon to the park with friends and this  mother comes along on her mobile phone and throws her 10 year old daughter and 3 year old son in the kiddie play pen so she could just stop watching.  Stop watching as her daughter kept knocking my 18 month old son off the slide…all the while snotting green goo all over the place. Not once did that mother have a close look. Not once did she bother to make sure they were playing nicely. Not once did she offer a tissue to her grotty daughter. She didn’t even enter the play pen.

Jaxon’s having a bad night. The second now. He can’t breath and that means he can’t sleep and THAT means I can’t sleep. And all because some idiot woman didn’t want to miss a few burnt sausages and drinks at a BBQ.

I know. I can’t keep him wrapped in cotton. But you know what? I don’t. With all the stunts he pulls Tim and I stopped trying to stop him hurting himself months ago. We figure he’ll learn eventually. We don’t know when…but hope it’s soon.

He’s been exposed. He has play dates. He goes to the EDC with other kids. Kids that are more prone to getting sick because most of them have bigger problems than a running nose to worry about.

But I just don’t understand how hard it would be to just keep that green snot at home. Like it was totally necessary for you to pass on your misery to me…without giving me a choice. Asshole.

I can’t tell you how devastated I was for three days thinking that I had completely lost my blog. For those three days, when I thought all had been lost (all, but the Kicking and Screaming side of things) I couldn’t stop thinking. I slept really badly, or more, I slept like I used to before I met my shrink. Every night I had three new posts in the making and no where to put them.

And now? Blah. Can’t think.

I think part of the reason is I found a new blog.

There is some sort of unwritten rule that if you read a blog, and you own a blog, then you should advertise that you read each other’s blog’s in the blogroll. For the most part I do that.

But this new blog is, well. Personal. I don’t want to share it. I can not explain it in the slightest. I haven’t seen photo’s, have just a nick name and an age. I don’t know where he comes from but slowly, as I move through his pages, I am learning where he has been.

It’s all different. His life to mine.  But it’s all the same. And reading his pages makes me feel like I could be reading an old diary entry from my own deep and dark past.

Somehow it’s given me writer’s block. I don’t know what to put here even though I want to put it here.

Never ever ever do that again!

Apparently my subconscious mind didn’t think I had quite enough on my plate. Perhaps deep down inside I’m bored. I don’t know. But somehow, I deleted one of the more important things in my life. My blog.

Even now all of my February work is gone. And that header image up there is a puzzle because all of the other pages have the header image intact.

I really didn’t mean it. But I probably should have known better.

I’d tell you what I did but I don’t really know what I did. Or I don’t know why what happened happened after I did what I did.

And then I wont even go in to the shit fight that happened with my “support” team over with my HostIcan (or can’t, or might…you may need to pay me. What? Unfair? I know. But you fucked up. And now if you want us to fix it, if it can be fixed at all…you might need to sign here on this dotted line. But that’s only if we can fix it. And we don’t know if we can)

Once again, and quite surprisingly, wordpress support came to my rescue. After three days of banging my head against the “I have NO IDEA what I have done and even LESS IDEA about how to fix it” wall, someone took my username and password and did it for me.

I will never do that again.

Normally I save my “You Should See this” posts for YouTube video’s. But today I have a special treat for you. And I must be fair from the start and warn you that you should probably go to the toilet before you press play.

Jaxon has been doing this for months but I’ve never been able to capture it on film. It is the funniest thing to watch and he puts SO MUCH effort in to it. He does this whenever he wants to make us laugh.

Enjoy!

I’ve been catching up with a LOT of old friends from high school lately and above all else I get asked what’s going on with Jaxon. It’s such a long story and it can’t be told in two or three sentences. So I write it here…

Jaxon was three years in the  making. In the “end” (the time just before we found out we were pregnant) I’d been told that I would not be able to have kids. I’d had blood tests for 12 months and hadn’t ovulated once…so that was that. No kids for Tim and I.

I was heart broken. But really, I think I had come to live with it for a little while.

It all started with a bit of cramping. And then sore nipples. I’m sorry, is this too much information for you? Tough. Ha Ha.

So one night Tim says to me about my incredibly sore nipples that I might be pregnant. But I think…no. I can’t be. That’s not possible. But of course, the mother in me jumped at the chance to do a pregnancy test. Not expecting that I would actually GET a positive pregnancy test.

But I did. I walked in to Tim, who was still sleeping…and told him. He said “that’s nice dear” and rolled over.

So the pregnancy was a bit tough. We had cramping for the first 8 weeks and got told we would lose it. That was just awful after all of that time to get pregnant and be told it was going to die.

But it all settled down. From 8 weeks to 27 weeks was all pretty normal. Until I got told I had gestational diabetes. It was that same day that my weight was just about to go over my “limit” and because of the diet I had to go on…I never went over it. I actually lost weight and it’s about the only time in my entire life that I have lost that much weight. While I was pregnant.

At 33 weeks Jaxon was still in the breech position. No worries. We gave him 3 more weeks, but then planned his birth via c-section anyway. I still went in to labor and managed to throw up all over Tim’s feet in hospital the night before it was all to happen. What fun.

Jaxon was born at 8.27am on the 24th of January 2007. Four weeks early.  He weighed 5 pound something. An America friend was kind enough to let me know that our nurse had converted it wrong so I have no idea what he was. But 2.86 kilo’s at any rate.

He had trouble in the first week or two. He went purple in his first few minutes and couldn’t maintain his body heat. His blood sugars would drop for the first few days. Despite the midwives milking my boobs like a bloody cow. My milk didn’t come in so he couldn’t get much out of me…so they tube fed him. I wonder now if they didn’t just like doing that to babies. Another friend refused to let them do it and he was just fine.

Jaxon was born with a club foot, a brachial plexis and torticollis. You might need to look those up. In the 2 years that Tim and I had lived here in town we had never been to Brisbane. We moved away from the city for a reason and saw no real reason to visit another one. But when Jaxon was born we started going twice a week for 9 weeks.

His foot was treated with little boots (ponsetti boots) and at 4 months he had a tenotomy and cast on for three weeks. Right now, you just couldn’t tell me which foot was the “bad one” it is so perfect and totally fixed.

His arm and neck on the other hand are a different story. The c-section was apparently a difficult one…what would I know? Morphine rocks!!!!!! But the doctors tore the nerves in Jaxon’s right arm so when he was born, and for the first 10 months or so, he could barely move it. We’ve been doing physio ever since we found it all at 4 months. Today he can use it. He can flex his finger’s now. While that seems like such a little thing, to me it is massive. He can flex his finger’s. They told me he wouldn’t and I would like to think that it’s partly my hard work with physio and other such activities that have brought him to this stage, where he can grasp things with his hand.

His neck, it would seem, is less about tight muscles and more about…the 12 bones in his neck. I’ve got a video on the video pages that shows you what’s going on in there. He’s meant to have 7, like the rest of us. But he has 12 and they’re not exactly normal. They tell me that nothing can be done and blah blah blah. But then, they told me he wouldn’t use his hand…ever. So anything is possible.

I think I mentioned earlier that my milk didn’t come in. It never did come in despite us trying and trying for 8 weeks. At the end of the day, when they said Jaxon needed X amount of milk each day and I was only producing X-400 mil a day and supplementing with formula…it just wasn’t worth it. So we gave up at 8 weeks and put him on a full formula diet.

At that point, or shortly after…Jaxon started crying. He cried all day and all night. Tim and I would beg the doctors to help us. They worked through a list of medications for reflux and colic and blah blah blah. Which all translated in to “we don’t really care” It turned out he was lactose intolerant. And all he needed was lactose free milk.

Friends and family that we told about the crying and lack of sleep all told us that we had a new born baby…we should expect crying and no sleep. But they didn’t come and see that it really was ALL day and ALL night. It was tough.

Without family about, and very few friends in a new town, I broke down. To be 100% honest with you, I sat on the bed one morning…the day before ANZAC day, and I planned how I was going to make the crying stop. It was not pretty. And I wont put it here, how I was going to do it. Because one day Jaxon might read this and I just don’t think he needs to know. What he does need to know is that deep down inside I loved him enough to call the hospital and admit myself to get REAL help. To keep him safe.

And that was that. The trip from there on in has not exactly been easy. But I can say that since that day, our journey has gone on the up and up. We’ve gone through hell. He’s had a lumbar puncture, he’s had his shin drilled. He’s had an MRI and CT scan and X-rays and an emergency ambulance ride. He’s had more medical procedures in his 2 years of life than I have had in my 30. Ooops. 31.

And now he goes in leaps and bounds and nothing is going to stop him. His physio teacher’s are just in awe of him. They just love him to bit’s. His little personality is just…BIG.

Day by day he amazes me. I am privileged to watch him becoming, as a friend explained it to me. Every day he makes me smile and laugh and love life and love being more than I have ever loved being in my own time. I thought I was happy (and I was) before he came along. And for a while I thought I would never be happy again…but now I just don’t know if I can hold all of this love and happiness and PRIDE in with him in my life.

Nothing in life compares to getting the honor of watching something YOU created and gave life to go from a blob of mash that pee’s, poops and cries…to something that has words and thoughts and their own personality.

To be continued…

Somewhere between my new love of photography, family and sleep, I’ve lost my motivation to post here.

Perhaps the biggest factor is sleep. Since I’ve been doing my “not now, I’m listening” thing, I just haven’t had the stories. It was that two or three hour stretch of time when I couldn’t sleep when I would lay there and think up things to write about. Some of my best posts came from that time when I couldn’t sleep.

Now that that time has been significantly reduced, I just don’t think about it anymore.

I don’t know if it’s a good trade off. Being able to get to sleep in a reasonable amount of time, or not having things to write about here. I think I prefer a good nights sleep.

It’s not even that I have nothing to write about at this point. We’ve had Tim and Jaxon’s birthdays.

We’ve had a visit from his Nanny and Poppy where we went on several bush walks and had lot’s and lot’s of fun. His Grandpa Ted and Grandma Ann came to visit too. Grandpa Ted passed on the family camping trailer (which he built himself), which I hope will give Jaxon as many years of joy and good memories as it did me.

We’ve been on our first camping trip and we’ve had leaps and bounds in Jaxon’s progress at the EDC and at the pool. We’ve taken some amazing photo’s and we’ve just been having lot’s of family time which has just be wonderful while Tim was on holidays.

Really, I have SO MUCH to tell you. I just can’t find the motivation and the words are not there yet. But I garauntee that when they come back, you wont be able to keep up.

Here are some photo’s of our camping trailer.

What can I say? The ball’s were dirty!?!?!

He had a “ball”…HA…what did you expect??

A well known American website has been under fire recently for a very brief post that they made about a photo that was taken here in Australia.

I’ve looked over their pages and I get it. They make fun. They find humor. They add funny little tag line’s and gossip about celebrities.

Here’s a snap shot of the post in question. You can also see it, and the rest of the web site here.

I guess it’s not the making fun of something Australian that has bothered me so much. I could really care less. It’s the fact that they chose THIS photo to make fun of.

The fire’s have killed almost 200 people. They’ve taken eight or nine hundred home’s and completely wiped out entire communities. Beautiful communities. The number’s will never be calculated but it is suspected that MILLION’s of wild animal’s lost their lives. In fire. Burnt to death.

The stories we hear are just awful. Nothing can describe what these people have been through. One man watched as his children burnt to death in the family car. Another watched the same thing happen to his father.  Husbands and wives separated by flames and never made it. People lost their entire families in one foul swoop. People have LOST EVERYTHING.

Perhaps it’s just hard to image what that would be like? Being burnt to death? Being trapped in a literal inferno? Perhaps the news feeds for our fire’s have shown the fire, but not the lives it took. Perhaps you saw the flames but not the tears and heart ache that is being felt all over our country.

The fires are still burning. The fire fighter’s are still fighting. While all hope was lost in one day for hundred’s of lives, and EVERYONE in Australia is feeling the hurt and the loss and the devastation that the fire’s have created this one photo shows up and gives us hope.

It makes us see that there were true hero’s fighting for the live’s and the life styles of people that we know and love. It makes us see that in the face of devistation, a wild animal who had been burnt but had managed to survive the flames, would be willing to trust a MAN to give it comfort.

Koala’s are not pet’s. Touching a Koala in the wild would be much like trying to pet a wild grizzly bear or befriend a poisonous snake in the wild. This just doesn’t happen. In fact, unless you’re looking for them and happen to be really lucky, you’re highly unlikely to SEE a Koala in the wild. And for anyone that doesn’t know? Under normal circumstances, this Koala would have ripped this man to pieces if he’d tried to get that close in the wild.

In the comments on that website, quite a few people said that Australian’s have a weird obsession with animals. No. We do not. But we respect what this photo signifies. And we did not make fun of people jumping out of the Twin Tower’s, or the people being rescued from roof tops when Hurricane Katrina hit. We pulled together, and we raised money to help.

We are a relatively small country. But we have big hearts. And everyone has been affected by these fires. Everyone know’s someone who has been touched by the flames. And for a heartless bunch of idiot’s to make fun of the very little hope that we managed to find when the smoke started to clear, was just wrong. The apology issued, was worse.

It makes me lose faith in the human race. That just because ocean’s are between us, they couldn’t see the hope that we found in that photo. They couldn’t feel our pain. That saying a Koala who has been burnt in the flames being given water by a man who may well have been awake for more than 24 hours to save lives is, being pampered? How do these people live with themselves?

Perhaps, this is how this photo should be remembered.

HOPE

While Nanny and Poppy visited for Jaxon’s birthday this year, I learnt a very important lesson.

The lesson??

Don’t go on a 3 kilometer bush walk when you think you might shit your pants.

Dah!

It really has to be up there with the worst thing that could ever happen. The worst feeling and the most embarassing thing to have to explain to the person you’re with at the time.

At the time I was lucky. I was only with Tim. I got that uncomfortable feeling.

At that time, I was doing what everyone out on bush walks does when they see a hanging rock. I was standing under it and acting like I was holding it up for one of those candid shots you get but would never frame.

Then I felt like I needed to do a big fart.

So I did.

And more.

I said to Tim, I think I just shit my pants. And Tim replies…Ahhh shit.

Exactly.

(I was sick by the way. I don’t make a habit of just shitting my pants whenever I please)

It has to be up there with one of the worst things that could ever happen to you in public.

And might I add, it’s just as awful when you fall alseep and do it again while you sleep.

I did mention, and you DID hear…that I was sick right???

Anyway. I thought I would share. Enjoy!

I’m just sharing photo’s that I’m really proud of.

Tim got himself a new camera so we’re playing about with it and tonight while we all sat in the back yard soaking up the sunset, Dude started playing in the funny dead grass things that have blown in from the empty field across the road.

They’re a total pain in the ass and despite the fact I keep throwing them over the neighbors fence under the cover of darkness, they keep showing up back on our side of the fence (it’s an empty house, so no, they are not throwing them back)

Anyway, they make for a very playful kitty cat and he’s very photogenic…which I love.

I just really like these photo’s of him.

Australia Day

26th January 2009

That’s me. Taking a deep breath in, a deep breath out.

Why? Because Nanny, Poppy, Tim and Jaxon have just left the house to go for a bush walk. And left me here…totally alone.

We have a house inspection tomorrow and I need to clean my very messy home.

So Poppy and I are talking in the front yard as Nanny put’s Jaxon in his car seat.

He tell’s me “Don’t worry, we’ll be really careful”

My response??

Be gone. Go. Have fun. TAKE. YOUR. TIME.

Don’t get me wrong. Love the boy, love the husband. Gonna miss ya. But…I can’t tell you how nice it is to be alone in the house and know that Jaxon is in the care of people that love him and care for his safety as much as I do.

The first thing I did? Well I turned the friggin Wiggles off and put MY music on. Really REALLY loud! Then I took my clothes off.

Then I came here, to blog it. Because this doesn’t happen often.

But now I must go vacuum…or have a bath. Or a nanna nap where I know I wont be woken by anybody or anything.

You’d think that would be a tough choice. House work V Time to be Me.

But I have to clean

Mary Beth, clearly thinks I don’t have enough blogging material 

So, this Honest Scrap thing. I’ve never seen it before so I’ll just follow the rules and hope I don’t get in any sort of trouble. Lucky thing then that I live ALL THE WAY DOWN UNDER and MB is scared of all those spider’s we have…snigger snigger.

Here are the rules for this award:

a) List 10 honest things about yourself – and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!

and

b) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

Wow. I really am going to have to dig deep. I think I’m too honest sometimes!

And of course, I hope you don’t expect short and sweet from me. I don’t know how to do short and I certainly don’t do sweet.

1)

When I was in high school I always wanted to get hurt in some sort of tragic and or/dramatic way. I would sit and day dream about falling over and breaking my leg and needing to get dragged off in an ambulance for ages in class. This way, I would be remembered as the girl who broke her leg/cracked her head open/fell down the stairs/cut her hand off or got hit by a car and not the “slut” of the school. Which I wasn’t.

2)

I am a self harmer. I started cutting when I was day dreaming about getting hurt in school. Self harming is not always about suicide. For me, it was the last thing on my mind. Self harming for me happened when so much pain and hurt and anguish was happening on the inside. In my head. When I couldn’t sleep for days on end and my head started pounding and I felt like I was about to explode. The pain that I created by cutting my arms, somehow released the pain I had on the inside. And by concentrating on the pain of the cuts, the other stuff faded away. By looking after my wounds, I felt more alive.

People in my life feel safe because I have not cut since early 2002. Just before I met Tim. But the truth is that it’s always there. And if I don’t stay on top of getting help when I need it, it could always happen. It’s always there. It makes you feel guilty. It makes you feel ashamed. But somehow it makes you feel better and when things get tough I always think about doing it. It will never go away but I hope that I will never lose so much of my control over it that I need to “use” it again.

3)

My husband makes me a better person.

I will never forget the first time Tim was talking in his sleep. About four or five weeks after we met. And even though I didn’t do it, I told him in the morning that I had tried to talk all of his deepest darkest secrets out of him while he slept. And he said “That’s not very nice, they’re my secrets and *I* control when you get to go inside” Man, that hit me. I hadn’t done it. But what he said was so true. And I have never ever considered doing it again, because I know I am a good person.

EXCEPT for that one time, when he rolled over and asked me to “hand him the towel with the chicken in it”…I made him repeat what he’d asked. Which he did. And then he woke up and heard what he was asking me to give him. So he told me I was a fucking bitch and went back to sleep. I was 30 weeks pregnant and had to go and sit ON the toilet while I laughed because I kept peeing my pants. I was laughing SO hard!

HEY! The rules clearly stated that I had to dig deep.

4)

Hmmmmm….

Sometimes, when Tim makes me laugh too much…I snort. Yep. I’m a snorter. And the really sad thing is…Jaxon does it too. Of ALL the things he could have taken from my gene pool…he took the stupid snort!

5)

Though I was very good at school and might even have been called the teacher’s pet on numerous occasions, I was also a very disruptive student. On my list of things that I would hope my son never does…

• I got in to a fight with my “ex-best friend” and threw a table at her. Then, when we both got sent to the principles office I managed to suck her (teacher) in to thinking it was ALL ex-best friends fault and I was the innocent party.
• We had a teacher named Mrs Gargan. Kids called her Nag Rag but no one ever did it to her face. Until I came along. I got in a LOT of trouble for that one. Mrs Gargan was my best teacher, and I really liked her.
• In year 8 I talked my entire class (for Mrs Gargan’s Italian class) to wag. They did. But all we did was go and sit outside her class room window where she could see us but not get to us.
• I would sit in class on my chair backwards. With my legs spread. Or I would sit with my feet up on the table. And once again, Mrs Gargan would yell at me and tell me I was un-lady like and that I was impertinent. I got my thrills by making her spit it, so that she would spray the kids in the front row. She would yell, “Jai-meeee, STOP. BEING. IM. PER. TI. NENT!! (and that there peoples, is the first and last time you will ever see me use my real name on this blog)

6)

I believe in God. But not religion. I believe that we should act a certain way and that the Ten Commandments are simply common sense. Following them should keep you out of trouble. It’s common sense not to steal things. It’s common sense not to fool around with your friend’s wife or girl friend. I believe that if everyone could believe that there is a God and not that I have a God and you have a God but MY God is better than yours or MY way is the RIGHT way, then there would be fewer wars. I believe that NO GOD would want us to fight this way.

I also happen to think that science has it right too. So maybe science created the Universe and God created humans.

7)

I happen to believe in global warming. I think that if we don’t do something about how we treat the earth soon, then in 50 years there will be nothing left of us. I am sad for my grandchildren for the mess that we are creating for THEM to clean up.

Australia is running out of water fast. When the water run’s out, the tree’s and plants die. And when they die the air will suffer. And when THAT happens the ozone (which by the way is paper thin) will suffer and when THAT happens, everyone will suffer. The temperature of the Earth will get so bad that water will dry up everywhere…and the trees will go. And the oxygen will go. And of course, as this all happens we stupid humans will fight over the last remaining tanks of oil and water…and when Aliens come to visit…there’ll be nothing left. Except of course, our rubbish. And our material belongings, which we put money towards over helping save the planet.

I also wish that NASA would quit sending rockets in to space. They go through our ozone layer. Dick heads.

8 )

At the moment, I am seeing a psychiatrist. I went there for a very specific reason.

Since Terry died back in 1997, I’ve been unable to cope with stress. I’ve been unable to keep a job for longer than 3 months. I normally lose a job within three weeks of starting.

I start, it’s all good.

Then one day someone will say something and I’ll start stressing about it. It could be nothing. It could be that I put the jug back in the wrong spot and could I please make sure I don’t do it again. But then from that day on I feel like everyone is talking about me. And everyone is sitting there laughing at me when I leave.

Then of course, I start lying in bed for hours and hours on end unable to sleep because I can’t stop thinking about what they might be saying and what they really meant when they said could I please make sure I didn’t do it again. Did they really mean that I am a bad person and I am going to suffer a long and painful death in hell because I put that stupid jug back on the right side of the bench instead of the left side of the bench? And why the hell didn’t they tell me to put it back on the right side so that I didn’t have to get in trouble in the first place huh?

So I lose sleep and then one day, not long after the jug incident…I start not wanting to go in. But I get up and I force myself to go. But then something else might happen. And it could be even more stupid than the jug incident (if that’s at all possible) like “could you take this to so and so” said in the “wrong” tone.

The next day?? I just don’t go. I lay in bed crying  and I can’t get out of bed because I’ve failed once again at keeping a job. And all the other stuff around that fact that keeps me awake at night. Like letting my family down. Letting Tim down. And letting myself down.

I’ve been doing this shit for 11 years. And I am sick of it. I don’t want to be THAT KIND OF ROLE MODEL for my kids. Because before Terry died I LOVED working and I was a good hard worker with a real future in my industry. I was going to go far and I could cope with comments and stress and lack of sleep and dead lines. I was a proud person who walked with her head high and didn’t worry so much about the crap that goes on at work. I never ever called in sick, I never cried at work in the toilets.

So I am SICK AND TIRED of being that person that can’t keep a job. A few weeks ago I decided that it’s a problem that I can’t solve by myself. That I am so accustomed to failing and losing jobs that right now, I am SCARED to go back to work even if I want to or our family would be better off if I did. Because I am scared to fail again. And let people down again.

Last week I walked in to that ladies office and I knew exactly what to say to her. Teach me how to cope again. Teach me how to function again. Teach me how to deal with LIFE (ie, having to work and keep a job) again.

I’m on my way.

9)

I want to write a book one day. I have been through so much. A parental divorce, my brother being killed in a car accident, child hood abuse, tough school years, severe depression, post natal depression, suicide attempts…the list goes on. I just feel like it can’t all be for nothing. Stuff like that can’t happen to someone like me and not be for a reason. Someone that can open up and talk about it all with pure honesty. Someone that can openly admit to mistakes, and failures, and open up about the pain and suffering without breaking down. It must have happened so that one day I can help other people going through the same shit.

10)

I had to ask Tim to help me out here because at one time or another all of my secrets have been told to someone or other. And he thinks you should know that my second toe is bigger than my big toe. As in longer. He thinks this is unusual but I think it’s normal. So if you happen to have a second toe that is like,  3mm longer than your big toe…pipe up and let him know in the comments section!

OK. Finally. We’re at the end. I can pass this thing along. I hope the people I pass it on to enjoy doing this as much as I have. Thank you Mary Beth, for giving me material I can work with

Firstly, this award goes to Jackie over at “The other side of the fence” because she’s just started blogging and I wanted to challenge her

Then, to Angela at “Thatch” The Journey. Because she inspires me in ways that no one else in my life will ever understand. This link will send you to my most favoritue post of hers. It’s my favorite post, because this is the way I see life. Stop, and smell the roses…or take in the sunrise…as it were.

Then, Ashley at Lily’s Pad, because she’s gone through some huge life changes recently and I wonder how she’s going.

Then my bestest friend ever Tasha at Tasha’s Asylum, because she started blogging but it never took off and I want to see more of her life since we no longer live close enough to meet up!

Then to Jackie over at Can we Survive, because she has an endangered animal up on her blog and I like that. She cares, and I like that.

Sending a big call out to Nicole at Mile’s Files. Just letting you know we’re all thinking about you and Mile’s. I don’t comment often, but I do read!

And last but not least, well. Not least. And I don’t know her name but I’ve been watching over at Sex Diaries of a Mom, and patiently waiting. And I thought, maybe, just maybe…she needs this award to help her get back in to blogging. Because blogging has become so important to me and maybe it’s important to her too and she just needs something to write about to get back in to her sexy groove.

This is photo’s taken of an approaching dust storm on Christmas day 2008. They were taken near Katherine in the Northern Territory. Australia. Not by me. Clearly. These are someone else’s photo’s.

I really should stop thinking that my son is above average and that I’ve escaped certain stages in his development. Certain stages that a mother and or father would much rather skip anyway.

To give a little of the back ground here, my friend Mary Beth from Because I said So, once told me all about her son Jamie who would, take off his own dirty nappy and spread it’s contents where ever he pleased. Mainly, she said, in his cot.

Well these past few days have been pretty big for Jaxon’s development. He’s learnt to say motor bike, and he answer’s “good” when I ask him how he is. He has excelled at the pool and he very recently (today) found his lungs. As in, he learnt to squeal. Very loudly.

But he sadly also learnt how to take off his own dirty nappy today. So while I was hanging towel’s out on the line, he was inside (and might I say joyfully) running the length of the hall way from his bedroom SCRUBBING his poo all over the wall!

Hm. Yeah. Just…above average normal.

(I thought it bad taste to take a photo of it and put it here. So I’ve put it here.)

This morning I had the blue care lady come to look after Jaxon as per the normal Friday routine. It’s a four hour stint and I look forward to it all week. Without it I think I might just go crazy not knowing when I get that “me” time.

Today was a long and tiring day. You might not think so since I’m up at 1am posting. But really it was. I think I’m over tired. Jaxon was up all night. He was awake until almost midnight and then woke twice, was hard to settle and eventually woke up for good at 5am when Tim got up for work.

I thought by the time my relief came I’d be ready to fall in to bed for a snooze…but decided on a bush walk instead.

Here are my two favorite photo’s.

This next one was not at the fall’s. It’s a logging company on the way home. I stopped in on the way back just to get these photo’s. I know I’m in to being environmental and all that, but these logs all lined up just looked so pretty, yet sad at the same time.

The walk down to the water fall is about 5 kilometer’s. It’s really a nice walk. I’ve done it twice and it’s for that very reason that I didn’t do it again today. You go down one way, and come up these stupid stairs. There’s more than 100 steps and the last time I did it I had an asthma attack half way up. Not many people make the round trip. It’s much easier just to go to the lookout above the fall’s than to walk down to them where you can actually walk in to the spray.

You can see more of them here.

17th January 2009

After having to write a post like this a little while ago, it’s nice to finally be able to say something different about WordPress support.

I’ve been fairly disappointed in the amount that people tend to care about your problems in their forums. Some threads asking for help can go days, weeks, months and even years without being answered. And I’m not even just talking about my own posts.

They tell us to search their forums for the answer’s to our question’s before we post it. Just in case. But countless times, and more often than not, you find the question and no answer. Where people have asked for help and no one has bothered to say a single word.

Not even an “I don’t know how to help you, but have a look here”

Pretty pathetic.

I don’t know if something got said. But a few weeks ago I was searching for the answers to some questions and every single post I found regarding the question was unanswered. Not only was I getting frustrated but the people who had searched those same questions before me had shown their disgust in a very verbal and abusive kind of way.

So I was really happy six days ago when I put up a post asking a question and within the hour I was getting that help.

It took almost 5 days to do it. Through back and forth posting. Forty posts of my questions and his answers. It was just…wow.

So I’d like to say a big thank you to Tugbucket for his never ending help and patience with my newby mistakes and constant pestering for answers. Just in case you haven’t noticed already, he helped me to set up the Photo Album page up top. It involved a lot of code, that might have well been in Chinese to me.

So Alan, thank you very very very much for your help.

2008 – 2009

January 2009

I am pretty sure I just got baited. By Tim.

The story goes a little like this. We’d just left the Chiropractor’s, where we had met. Me in the car and Tim on his bike.

I’d noticed as I left home that the rear tyre was getting a little flat and on our way out I mentioned it to Tim. Who tell’s me he’d noticed that in the morning.

So he casually tells me that he’ll do it later that day. And I casually mention that that is fine, as long as he DOES it.

Then, I make the mistake of saying “Should I go and do it now?”

Well! Tim says, it’s really hard. It’s really fiddly so you really should let me do it. But if you like, you can try. But it’s really hard you know.

So I tell him, I think I’ve just been baited. I’ve just been given the “you’re a girl and this really is a man’s job” so that I will in fact….go and do it, just to prove to him that anything he can do I can do better.

I did the tyre’s and when I got home later than expected Tim seemed really shocked that I had done it. Because, after all…he would have done it.

I’ve been slowly working on these pages.

It’s taken me a while and there is still some time to go.

In typical Boo fashion, what might have been best said in 500 words, was stretched out to a few more than that.

But whose counting huh? If you haven’t got the time (or you just don’t care) well…hmph. Most of you have probably come to love me for it. And if you haven’t…then hmph!

Also keep checking back, since now Tim’s been given free reign he tell’s me he’ll be posting when we least expect it. This apparently includes those pages.

As you can see I’ve just spent a bit of time changing the way things look around here. I’m really happy with how it all turned out.

I hope you are too.

One of the changes I’ve made that you will not know about is, I’ve added Tim to the list of people who can post here.

So now he can’t complain when I write about him.

He can just seek out his revenge here.

Tim…

“bring it”

A lot of my fellow blogger’s run blogs that their husbands (and or significant other’s) are totally unaware of. Other’s have husbands that know about the blogging world but don’t really care much for it. Those people can really write what they like and don’t need to worry about it.

None of that here. Tim is 100% involved with my blog. And if he’s not involved on a technical level (babe, I can’t figure this out)…then we could at least call him my proof reader. Once I’ve written up a post it always goes across to him for his opinion. And if he smile’s while he’s reading a story about something that he himself lived, then I know I’ve written it well.

There was a time when Tim was nothing but my moderator. He’d do something stupid or funny and I would threaten to put it here. I’d tell him it was “blog worthy” and tell him how I was going to spin it all on here.

Like the time I was in the shower and heard desperate cries from Tim and Jaxon because Dude had brought in a bird.

A BIRD WAS INSIDE!

Like, OMG! A BIRD! Boo, come here and get it OUT OF HERE!!! (insert girly screams here)

He didn’t want that to be put here. So I didn’t put it here. Or did I?

: )

But I know the times are changing. Because now more often than not I hear those words from Tim.

“Blog Worthy”

I’m sure that next time Dude brings a bird in, or there’s a spider in the bathroom…or he hit’s his head on something really stupid (like last night) and has a HUGE egg on top…he’ll probably tell me it can’t go on. Thats when he threatens that he’ll start up his own blog. He says he’ll call it “DebunkingBoo”

For now I feel pretty safe, that DebunkingBoo will never come to be. I’ve offered to have him as a blogger here on this site to give his version of events (like the day we nearly died) and he’s never done it so the chances of that happening really are quite low.

Until he does that, everyone here should know…Tim is the man behind the Blog

(and you’ll get to hear all about the things he tell’s me not to put here sooner or later, wink wink)

I have a very good friend who for a few years now has been telling me all about her lack of privacy when she goes to the toilet. It’s not that she doesn’t have a toilet door. It’s that she has kids.

So for a while now Jaxon’s been joining me in the loo. It’s been good. Really. Or sort of ok. Well, just ok. I only have one child so maybe it’s that. My friend has three, and I imagine having three kids in the loo with you while you twiddle your thumbs is a bit much.

So far he’s got down on the ground and looked between my legs to see all the action. He’s pulled my pants out and had a good look (where’s the super-absorbent padding Mum? The microfibers?) He’s wandered in behind me and flushed the toilet while I’ve been sitting there. He’s pulled the toilet paper off the wall, and he’s slammed the lid down on my ass as I sat there. It’s all good. I can cope with that.

All of this I could sort of just look past. It was cute. Sort of.  What on earth is my friend complaining about?

But today, when  he came dashing around the corner and spotted me on the loo and immediately started yelling out “Go! Go! Go! Go!” I was a little freaked out.

A wet ass I can cope with…but being cheered on from the side lines?

Hmm.

Every year I, along with million’s of other people around the world, make a new years resolution to lose weight.

And I’m sure that each and every year I am not alone when I don’t do jack shit during the year to actually achieve that goal.

So this years new years resolutions will be very different for me.

Instead of giving myself the huge task of losing weight, I give myself an even bigger task.

I need to just concentrate on me being happy.

I need to make the effort to do my hair and put on make up and GET DRESSED every single day.

I need to get out and get a life aside from Tim and Jaxon and our home.

This year, I need to work on waking up happy. I know I am “happy”, but I mean in a non depressed kind of way. I’ve been struggling with depression off but mostly on for the last 15 years. It’s almost just a way of life for me and I need that to stop.

This year, I stop putting myself down.

This year I accept that people love me and that I mean a lot to them.

This year I accept that I am a good mother, a good wife and a good person to know.

I think if I can be happy on the inside the weight thing will sort itself out. And if it doesn’t just fall off me (like I would like it to do) then at least I will feel good enough on the inside to CARE what the outside looks like. At least I’ll feel good enough to make the effort.

So this year my resolutions are to look after myself. To be comfortable in my own skin and be happy with who I am to the people around me. To do the things I love. To live in the moment and accept that the past was hard but it has made me stronger. To forgive myself for not loving Jaxon right away. To forgive myself for the things that I hang over my own head all the time.

This year, I focus on growing on the inside. Rather than shrinking on the outside.

(Boo, pushing past Daddy to the bathroom)

“excuse me Daddy”

“what ya doing?”

“washing my hands”

“Why?”

“Frog peed on me”