December notes

Been on holiday for a week. Already having trouble remembering what day of the week it is. Lovely. Two more weeks before I go back.

Went to stay with S for a few days. It’s like a mini resort stay. Not as luxurious, but someone else does all the work, I am fed excellent food, and there are no ‘shoulds’. Went up to my old hometown to look at the lights and the christmas tat in the markets there. Was awful in a very nostalgic way and I was only a little bit sad – when we went to see the ‘living nativity’ in which my family participated every year. I was usually a shepherd, not being blonde enough to be an angel, which was fine because the animals were great and one year I got to lead an alpaca around. One glorious year I got to be the wise man’s assistant, and wear the shiny costume. My dad was the corresponding wise man. When we saw it there was a dad and his daughter playing those roles, and there were a few Moments. In a good way, sort of.

I was a bit apprehensive about the stay. I’ve only really spent time with the kids a few times, and I’ve previously found the eldest a bit… not difficult, that’s unfair. They are both super lovely kids. But he is/was a teenage boy. And his temperament is a bit like mine, so there were some moments I found hard to navigate especially as I have no actual status as anything. But this year was 100% delightful. Those boys are turning into – are already – lovely people, and it was a pleasure to hang out with them. It was heartening.

I have had some very thoughtful christmas and birthday presents from friends. I don’t really expect anything, in general, although it’s nice to have something to open. But everything I’ve received has been so perfect and thought out. It’s lovely to know that people are thinking about you and care enough to go through the hell that is christmas shopping. That sounds a bit self aggrandising, somehow. But I really mean it to be about how much I appreciate my friends, and how touched I am by the lovely gifts. One was a book about guerilla embroidery from a guy friend who always gets gifts bang on. Previous gifts from him include a brooch that is a teeny bit of knitting on teeny needles, and a book on how to make zombie cupcakes.

Speaking of cupcakes, been baking up a storm here. I’m in charge of deserts for Christmas lunch. I think I’ve gone a bit overboard. Last night I cooked a christmas cake – my first christmas/fruit cake ever, a little singed around the edges but man, it smells divine. At the same time I cooked a roast and two loafs of bread for domestic consumption, made the pastry for the famous and requested chocolate pie, and made vanilla icecream which is basically frozen custard and is absolutely amazing. I ate the bits that were left in the freezer bowl and then I thought I might die of a heart attack right there, because it was so rich. Tonight I made an inferior ice cream, with just cream and vanilla essence, for people who want to eat icecream without fearing death, the actual famous chocolate pie (originally a Jamie Oliver recipe), a raspberry coulis for said pie, and some lemon curd to go on top of the pav that I’ll make tomorrow morning. Did I mention that both today and yesterday were high thirties? Yikes. But should be cool enough to sit outside tomorrow.

I’ve also been making. I had a little production line and made a bunch of bike shorts to wear under skirts. Churned them out, I’ve cracked it now and each pair only took about 20 minutes, cutting included. I also made two skirts, both from the same Ottobre pattern that I traced off of Janet’s magazine one Camp. I discovered the blind hem stitch on my machine, which is AMAZING, but I buggered one of them up so have to redo it. Maybe tomorrow? It’s red and white so I might wear it as a festive outfit to lunch. I feel like I’ve leveled up a bit, sewing-wise. I’m still finding it hard, and there’s lots of swearing and ripping out seams, but things seem a bit more possible, somehow.

I really just meant this to be a bullet point catchup, but apparently I had more to say than I thought. Well, anyway, I am thinking of all of you this holiday season, and wishing you a happy whatever-you-celebrate (I’ve got a few christmases, a solstice or two, Hanukkah, Kwanza and a festivus, that I know of). Thank you all for another lovely year of internet friendship, sporadic as it may have been on my part. Here’s looking forward to many more.

Try again

Oh, dear.

I wrote out this whole post about how I haven’t been around because I’m tired, and then wordpress ate it. (And also this one, which I’d cleverly written in Word, first. It seems it didn’t like photos being included?)

Probably for the best – it got a bit maudlin. Well, it is Monday morning, after all. Only three weeks till holidays, though. I am looking forward to them.

I sort of accidentally volunteered to organise the family Christmas. I’m not hosting, it’s at Grandmas, but I’m doing the running around and herding cats organising family members. Mostly just telling who to bring what. But it’s good, I’ve been trying to involve myself more with my family. There were a few thing this year that I felt left out of, and while part of it probably was certain family members not thinking of me, a good part of it was that with most of my cousins interstate or overseas, my contact with the general family is limited. So I am trying to rectify that.

I anticipate that family Christmas will be painful but good. We had a big family birthday/reunion type thing a few months ago, after which I was really upset for no particular reason. I think I need to do some more processing – which is good, because it means I am in a place where I can actually do that. Progress, emotional continence, etc. In the mean time, though, it’s leaving me a bit limp and faded. I was just describing it to a friend as it feeling like my emotional bones are aching. I feel physically fine, but keep catching myself walking carefully, and holding myself as if I hurt. Keep having vivid, confusing, emotional dreams, too, that I can’t remember but mean I wake up completely un-rested. Only to be expected, really, as we head in to December. I’m fine, though. Taking it easy on myself, and I could be better, but all in all, totally fine.

As frustrating as this time of year business is, it does mean it has a time limit. Three weeks till holidays, when I can sleep all day. Then trauma week. Then festivities, then one more week of holiday to enjoy the summer. Not so long, really.

Anyway, long story short, I’m around, although some days even logging in to leave a comment just seems like too much effort. I am looking forward to being less tired, so I can sit outside in the twilight, having drinks with friends. And I am grateful for all the company and metaphorical cups of tea and cocktails that you internet people provide me with.

Absent

Literally. WordPress keeps eating my posts.

In which I gloat and whinge

Happy new year, my crafty peeps.  I hope it’s a good one.  Not that it’s off to a great start, on a national level, what with the flooding.  The news and photos coming down from Qld are truly terrifying.  It’s horrible that it takes something like that to make us (me?) more thankful for what and who we have in our lives, and for how safe we are most of the time.  I feel crass saying this here, but it would be worse to ignore it and chat happily away (although I will do just that in a second).  It’s times like this I wish I could pray, because I am under no illusions that my thoughts and well wishes will do any good to those people struggling with the reality of it.

Here comes the thoughtless chattering bit.

Thanks so much for all your lovely messages in reply to my last post, and over the holidays.  They were so nice, and every one of them made me smile.  I did start several replies to people, and then just… didn’t finish them.  I figure that was all covered under my December free pass that I gave myself.

December was pretty good, really.  I think mostly because I was geared for it to be rocky.  So I just slobbed around and didn’t do too much and didn’t feel guilty.  Celebrations were scattered and low key.  On my last day of work before holidays S took me out for dinner to celebrate my birthday, since it clashes with solstice.  It was lovely, and it would have been lovelier if I hadn’t been tired and in bed by 9.  Am old lady.  I spent Solstice with S and his kids, and had Christmas Eve dinner with my family, who were all remarkably well behaved.  I had Grandma in the Kris Kringle and I bought her the fireman calendar and she LOVED it and made the cousins all pick out which one they liked the best.  One of my cousins had me and got me a tshirt I have been eyeing off for… oh, 5 years now?  Which totally makes up for the last two years where I got, respectively,  a burnt CD of a computer game I already had, and a packet of bowl-cover things (plastic with elastic around the edge) ‘so that I didn’t have to buy gladwrap’.  Christmas day I did NOTHING, and then we went to the beach in the evening.  Bliss.  NYE we went to the beach and then were in bed by 9:30 because I am an old lady and I am tired.  And then we had another family meal on NY day, where my mother brought her boyfriend – gasp!  Which is fine by me because I like John (more than I like my mother) and also she behaves around him.  And also he gave me a spinning wheel for my birthday.

See how I slipped that in there?  Here’s the story.

Early December, S and I went for lunch with my mother and John at my childhood home.  Which was weird and also surprisingly good – seriously she behaves when John is around.  There were a couple of super awkward moments, but all in all, a surprisingly good time.  I left thinking ‘huh.  Maybe we can make baby steps towards having a functional relationship’  Of course, I neglected to remember that my mother doesn’t understand boundaries, so she immediately thought that we were best buddies again, and called me every day for the next week, which meant I started having panic attacks every time she called, which I haven’t done for a year or so.

Gosh, I’m bitter, aren’t I?  I’ve been emailing my sister about this, providing some moral support, and it’s made me feel… vulnerable, I guess.  And mad.  As much as I really am reconciled with not having a mother, as such, it still makes me so mad that I will never ever be able to trust her enough to have a real relationship with her.  And sad.  Very, very sad, if I let myself think about that.  Most of the time it’s fine, but you know… sometimes you just want to be able to relax, to have the comforting and that familiar.  Most of the time I feel pretty strong and independent but… sometimes it would be nice not to have to be.  I have been remembering when it was fine, and I had access to that comfort and love.  When the best thing when I was sick was a mum-hug.  When I enjoyed the chance to tell her about my day.  When I didn’t have to fight her off and I didn’t have panic attacks.

Hmm, I appear to have forgotten how to tell a narrative.

So, I was SAYING, we were at dinner and I said something about knitting and John said ‘oh!  Do you want a fleece?’  And I was like… yes?  He had one black lamb out of thousands of white ones this year, and so he couldn’t sell the fleece.  I said, yes, please!  I will have it!  Now all I have to do is learn to spin it.  And John said ‘Oh!  Do you want a spinning wheel?’

…. Um, YES.

The catch was, it was his wife’s.  She is in a nursing home with dementia.  My mother stepped in and suggested that perhaps his girls wouldn’t want him giving their mother’s wheel away.  He said they never showed any interest, and my mother said that perhaps he could loan it to me, and ask them later.  His kids are apparently not ok with him having a new relationship, which I think is fair enough but also kind of… harsh.  However, it’s not my family so I don’t get an opinion.  I found that moment interesting, though.  I was surprised by how mature and careful my mother was about it.  Although, on reflection, in my whingey mood, it does show that she CAN respect boundaries and be aware of other’s potential feelings.  Which makes the fact that she can’t seem to do that with me or my sister a tad more upsetting.

OH WELL, TOUGHEN UP, PRINCESS AND GET BACK TO THE STORY.

Story, right.  So, they came down the next weekend to drop off the fleece and pick up my sister’s old mattress because I had nowhere to store it.  And John sheepishly (ha!) said that he had looked for the wheel and couldn’t find it, and he thinks he gave/lent it to someone else only he can’t remember who.  I said, oh that’s alright!  I’ll get one eventually, it’s not like I know how to use it.  And he said no, he promised me a wheel and he would get me one.  I told him not to be silly.

The weekend after that was my birthday.  My mother called me that week, my last week at work, saying she wanted to see me before my birthday and give me presents.  I said, was pretty busy that weekend, because I had to finish work, do house stuff, finish off gifts, meet up with two people, and get ready to head to S’ for solstice.  But I could commit to coffee on Sunday.  She said, oh, well, you think about it and let me know what you have time for.

I have time for coffee.  On Sunday.

Oh, well, I’ll call you on Saturday and you can tell me if you have time for lunch.

I won’t have time for lunch, I’m meeting someone else for lunch, let’s have coffee.

Well, let me know on Saturday, and then we can decide.

I’m deciding now.  I want to have coffee.

Well, think about it.

ARGH

This literally went on for five minutes.  I timed it.  It was frustrating.  Then I realised that Sunday was the anniversary of my dad’s death, and I didn’t really want to see my mother on that day, thankyou very much.  And I also didn’t want her to call me on Saturday (see earlier comment re: panic attacks.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had one, but they are not fun).  Anyway, I called her back and said actually, I will not have any time then.  And it turned out that I didn’t, and I didn’t get all the stuff done that I needed to, anyway. (S got some material and a pattern instead of a wearable gift.  And I still haven’t sewn it.  Whoops).

I think she was pushing it so hard because she wanted to get the emotional reward when I got the spinning wheel.  As it was, she ended up leaving them at my place while I was being taken out to dinner and spoiled by S.  So I came home to a pile of things to unwrap, which was quite nice.  Gosh, I sound heartless, don’t I?  Anyway, obviously the wheel was the highlight.  Apparently it was bought in some gift shop in Moonta.  I have yet to play with it yet – the day after that an old friend asked for his cupboard back.  He made it himself and I was borrowing it while he rented out his house, and it had all my fabric in it.  Of course I said he could have it back, but it did make my craft room pretty unusable.  The chaos is semi-contained now, and the wheel unburied, but I am… sort of afraid to touch it.  I don’t know how to use a spinning wheel!  I don’t even know if all the bits are there for heaven’s sake!  However.  I shall, and soon.

I also scored big at my grandma’s on New Year’s Day.  She pulled me to one side and told me that she’d bought this cover stitch machine a few years ago, it was quite expensive, a couple thousand, but she’d never used it, and did I want it?

Um… YES PLEASE.

I did make sure she really didn’t want it.  Her sister is really sick at the moment, she’s gone into hospital and I don’t think she’s coming out.  So I think she’s sort of sorting stuff – she said she’s left me her babylock in her will.  On the one hand, talking about mortality is fine, on the other hand, I will be devastated when grandma dies.  I almost had trouble typing that.  The thought of it is upsetting.

So I have that, too, and when I restored order to my craft room I set it up and I even read the manual, all the way through.  But… I’m a bit scared to touch it, too.  However!  I have vowed that I shall!  I am not one for resolutions, really (although I seem to dimly remember making some last year – too scared to check) but here are some things that I want to do in the next two months:

1. At least look at my spinning wheel and see if I can work it out.  Baby steps.
2. Finish the pj pants I said I would make S for solstice.  Use the cover stitch machine in the process.
3. Cut out and sew a dress pattern I bought last year.  Wear it to work once.
4. Sew a few skirts.  I am going in to Spotlight tonight to buy some of the fabric I saw on sale in the holidays.  And some zips.
5. Make an effort to go to see Grandma a couple of times for lunch or dinner or whatever.

That’s it.  Not too hard, no?  We shall see how we go.  I really would like to get some clothes sewing going.  I’ve been saying that for years now.  But really, no one who doesn’t sew clothes has an excuse to have as much fabric as I do, besides having three different machines for sewing.  It’s ridiculous.

I was going to end this off with photos of my FOsfrom the year, but there are embarrassingly few.  Although, I suppose if I included walls painted and plants planted, it would go up.  I knit one baby blanket, three mini shawls, a pair of gloves, some fingerless gloves and a scarf/hat for others.  For myself, I finished two jumpers: cinnabar and emily.  I wear cinnabar at least twice a week, I love it so much.  Emily, not so much.  It’s still too short, if I’m honest, and the line through the middle where I ‘fixed’ it is just annoying.  Perhaps I will ‘fix’ it better, this year.  Or maybe rip it.  I think it might be the year of ripping.  And sewing?  Too optimistic?  We’ll see…

Oh, December. Where did you come from?

So, I’ve been a bit hiding lately.  I couple weeks ago I was wondering why I was so tired.  And then I realised.  Almost December.

I mean, December is wearying enough.  But this year is pretty low key, so why was I stressed?  Oh, that’s right.  It’s Trauma Month.

I forget that I have to be careful of myself.  I’ve been thinking about it, and I have decided that it really is like spoons.  I hesitate to say that, because I am abled and I don’t wish to appropriate language that is helpful to people who need it.  Oh, look, poor me I’m a bit tired and it’s hard!  And it is, in fact, incredibly different.  It isn’t physical tiredness, and so it’s therefore easier to deal with, by far.  I’m not going to be unable to feed or clothe myself because I am too tired.  I may lack the WILL to do those things, on certain days. But that is completely, utterly different from being actually unable to do them. 

It’s emotional tiredness, attention tiredness.  Anything I have to pay attention to or think about emotionally uses up a few more spoons.  And I just don’t have them to spare at the moment.  It’s not that I don’t WANT to spare them, it’s that they are not there.  And I hate it, because it makes me feel weak and vulnerable and like a big fat wuss.  But it’s true, that’s the way it is, and pretending to be fine is completely counter productive.

This week I’ve been migrainey, plus I saw my mother last weekend and am seeing her again on Saturday.  Plus it’s the work christmas thing.  Plus I got two unexpected bulls.  Plus, plus, plus.  Nothing major, really.  Things that in any other month would be irritating but nothing a good whinge couldn’t fix.  But it’s December and I’m TIRED.  I just keep coming back to how weary and drained I am.  I just want to lay down in bed and stare at the ceiling until January.  My temper is short and I am having a hard time making meaningless chit chat with workmates and others without being rude.  I’m sleeping badly and waking up tired and achey.

I didn’t start this meaning to have a whinge.  I meant to simply say, you probably won’t see me around these parts for a while.  Things are fine, but I have to keep reminding myself that they are fine as long as I watch myself and am careful of where my energy is going.  

In a lot of ways, it’s a reminder of how good I actually have it.  At how much grief and pain and that sucking, aching nothingness have receded.  They still are always there, when I’m tired and stressed and upset.  But I am in charge now.  That feels good.  And I want to keep it that way, thankyouverymuch.

So I am opting out until I feel less tired, because unfortunately I am paid to put my attention elsewhere.  Please don’t think this is an appeal for sympathy or a cry for anything.  I really truly am totally fine.  I reserve the right not to be fine, later, but that would be ok too.

I am still reading everyone’s blogs but am too lazy to comment.  I hope all of your holidays go fantabulously, and I shall see you all again soon.

Dammit

I was chatting to a friend and to demonstrate a point which I can’t remember anymore I showed her this.

It’s Sweet Honey in the Rock singing verses from Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’.  Those two things have a whole bunch of associations for me, but the base line is, I love this song a whole, whole lot for so many reasons.

Anyway, later in the day I was thinking about it as regards me and my own mother, and whether it’s still relevant (conclusion: yes).  And I had a moment where I just intensely missed my dad.  The first one without grief all tied in.  The kind of missing you might do if someone were overseas, or you just hadn’t had a chance to catch up for a while.

And then of course I was even sadder afterwards.  Because I am sort of used, now, to the emotion of missing my dad with anger and grief mixed in, or for feeling bad for missing my dad because he made dealing with my mother easier, or any of those things.  But I am not used to missing my dad in a way that makes me think ‘I should call him’.

Clearly, I cannot call him.

And I am angry that, because of the way he chose to leave us, and because of my mother, it has taken me TWO YEARS to be able to just miss him.  To just want to hear his voice and share a joke with him, without any other emotional meaning behind that impulse.

There we go.  Anger AND grief.  That’s more familiar…

‘You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.’ – George Bernard Shaw

On the Tuesday after craft camp, it was obvious that I was actually ILL, not just sniffly.  My throat was sore, my ears were sore, I felt like someone had been using me as a punching bag, I was all stiff and achey and poorme.  The last two hours of work were a trial worthy of hercules.  As I left work, my sister rang me, squealling that the cat had caught a baby mouse and was playing with it, and she (the sister) had to go to work, so if the mouse was not dead by the time she left, I would have to deal with it.

Luckily, the cat appeared to have consumed it by the time I got home.

I put myself to bed at 8.30 that night, anticipating a restless night. I always sleep badly when I’m sick.  And I always have horrible epic dreams in which I have to endlessly search for things or perform repetative tasks.

Surprisingly, I slept pretty well up to about 3.30am, when I woke up and then dropped back off at about 5.30, just in time to be very surprised that my alarm was going off.

I did have lots of vivid dreams, though.  They were almost exclusively about craft camp, and were quite wonderful.  What a lovely bunch of women to spend time with, even in my subconscious. 

I did have one nasty dream, though.  About my mother, of course.  They always are.  I don’t really remember much about the dream.  It was set at the parental home, but although my father was dead in the dream we were younger – I was a teenager and my sister young, although she didn’t feature in it except inasmuch as I felt the need to take flak to shield her from my mother, as was usual.  I had to perform some dream task – looking for something, maybe – and my mother either wanted me to do something else, or wanted me to do it in a particular way that I knew wouldn’t work.  But she wouldn’t listen to the reasons for why I had to do whatever it was my own way.  She was just talking over the top of me, being quite rude about my general capabilities and grasp on reality, until she found some way to force me to do it her way.

It was a pretty unremarkable dream, really.  Except that when I woke up I still felt all the emotions – that soul deep frustration and anguish and powerlessness and lack of agency.  That terrible loneliness of being caught under someone else’s power and not even allowed to acknowledge that.  The anger at having one’s will not even heard, simply squashed, for arbitrary reasons.

It was nice, in a way.  It was good to remember the way I used to feel, all the time.  That these were genuine emotions, caused by real things that my mother did, not just teenage tantrums.  That I am in a better place now, thanks to hard work on myself and also limiting the amount my mother features in my life.  Phew!  I will be remembering those dream emotions the next time my mother tries to emotionally blackmail me or guilt me about something.  Those emotions, remembered in my dream, are why I have no positive emotions about her now. 

Tangentally, I realised that although I grew up calling my parents by their first names, I hardly ever do anymore.  They usually feature as ‘my mother’ and ‘my dad’.  Mostly because very few of the people who are important in my life actually know/knew my parents.  But also, I think, because it’s easier to refer to my mother as such, when she refuses to treat me like a fellow human being.  It’s easier to give her a label and a niche and file her away as a symbol, because that is all (all! ha!) she really is.  The same goes for my dad, for a whole barrel of different reasons, obviously.  I don’t really miss having a dad, I must say.  I miss Tim, though.  On the other hand, I don’t miss Theresa, but I sometimes miss having a ‘proper’ mother – whatever that means.  A mother who it is safe to allow access to my life, I guess. 

Oh, well.  I feel remarkably little angst about it at the moment, but I suspect that that is a result of the new-relationship brain drugs and also the fact that I haven’t had to have much to do with my mother lately.  Oh, and having blogged out some angst, and figured out some connections.  The angst will be back, I’m sure.  I’ll keep you posted on that, shall I?

Been a while

I had to reenter my WordPress password, that’s how long it’s been.  And remember it, too!   It was a struggle.

It’s been crazy, folks.  Also, we only got internet on at home yesterday.  And while I am, in fact, blogging at work, it seems like there was some sort of mental block about blogging when I didn’t have the net at home.  And somehow it didn’t feel quite like we’d moved in without the net.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  But although I was very glad to load up my ipod with new podcasts, and I’ve missed my bloggy peeps, I must say I enjoyed not having the net for the most part.  Except that I kept missing events because I didn’t know i’d been invited to them, and even if I did know, I couldn’t find out where they were.  I just don’t function well without technology anymore!  I’m not organised enough…

So, I’m just going to chuck a bunch of random things in here, because lots has been happening.

• Over the Easter weekend, I did the teatowels.  Remember that sawp?  The one with the deadline that was a month ago?  Yeah, that one… I still have to heat set them, but they’ll be in the mail this week, I promise.  Sorry to my lovely swap partners who have lavished me with towels and been very understanding about not getting theirs.

• Over the Easter weekend, I also dyed my hair blue.  I do not have a photo of this, but it is very blue. 

 

• Also over the Easter weekend, I pulled up all the concrete that Osk had jackhammered into pieces, and put it into skips.  Well, my sister helped a bit.  For about an hour.  I also pulled up millions and billions of three cornered jacks.  The raised bed is clear and mulched, as is the roughly same sized area below it (about 1.5x5m).   I did this one evening, and the next morning there were magic little green things growing in it.  Just weeds, undoubtedly, but still!  They are not (all) three cornered jacks!  And the ones that are three corenered jacks are easy to spot – by the time they peek out of the mulch, it is obvious what they are.  I’ll have to stay vigilant, but I am confident that I am slowly winning.  I did a massive order of flower seeds from Diggers, to put in the raised bed, because I am desperate to have something growing.  Preferably something colourful and cheery to distract from the wasteland that is the rest of the garden.  I also bought half wine barrels from a lovely lady from Mt Compass, and I have a dwarf lime to go in one, a bay tree coming from Diggers for another, and plans for potted colour and herbs for the other two.

 

• The mulching is a good thing because although we didn’t get the rain we were promised over the long weekend, it BUCKETED down overnight, with more rain promised for the rest of the week.  There was thunder and lightening this morning, and when I had to run from shelter to the bus, I got about as wet in 3 seconds as I would have if someone had dumped a bucket of water over me.  The garden is completely flooded, since the soil is rubbish and doesn’t absorb any water at all until it’s been bombarded.  Hence the mulching being good, because the area with the mulch was already damp and therefore managing to absorb water.  Also, it will stay damp and maybe more magic green things will show up!  The verandah is also damp, because the lean-to is leaning slightly in towards the house (how apt) and is therefore not watertight with the roof.  So water comes down right in front of the door.  Except that it’s been ‘fixed’ by placing a metre of guttering over it, so NOW it comes down either SIDE of the door.  I’m thinking of getting some longer guttering and feeding the water off onto the soil at the side of the house where at least it will run off into the garden and not onto all the things under the verandah.  Until I feel like replacing the whole lean to.  Sigh.

 

• I called Bunnings about special ordering in some multigraft fruit trees for out the front.  I’ve got two dwarf lemons out there, with space in between for a crab tree to make a hedge.  I’ll get two avos whenever anyone has them in stock again, for a hedge on the other side.  And two Natal plums to to fill in the bit where the sad roses are, downt eh middle of the drive.  I’m trying for a peach/nectarine tree and a multigraft pear in the front.  I also ordered stuff from Yalca fruit trees, which Tanya’s partner runs.  I bought some garlic from her and BOY does it smell good.  Like actual real garlic that tastes like garlic!  She also sent me a bonus tea towel, even though we weren’t swap buddies.  Aaaaw.  And it has CHICKENS on it!  Ahem.  Anyway, I bought a cherry for the back, and two dwarf apples to espalier along a fence.  A 20 ounce for cooking, and a hubbartson’s nonsuch which, besides sounding very cool, is awesome for everything.  Also some raspberries and blackberries and some kiwifruit to climb up the verandah.

 

• I worked the state election.  It was fun, but it was a looong day.  I worked Kavel, which is where my mother lives and where I grew up.  Lots of old familiar faces, and the Polling Booth Manager and one of my fellow workers were my old 2/3 teachers.  They job shared and I loved them.  At the end of the evening we were discussing what we would buy with our money.  I said it was probably juuust about enough to buy a spinning wheel and Wendy perked up and said I could have hers.  If she could find all the bits.  I remember her telling me how she used to sit inside the kid’s playpen and spin, so that they couldn’t throw themselves onto it.  I was very grateful and said I would love to give it a new home, but no rush because I don’t have anywhere to put it and also only technically know how to use it.

 

• Becuase we were working from 7:30 until 10pm, we stayed at our mother’s place.  It’s only the second time I’ve been back since the wake (I still have to specifically stop myself from saying ‘my parent’s place’).  It was like a paradise.  There are scads of tiny birds everywhere, the trees I planted ages ago are massive, the gardens are beautiful.  My mother is talking about selling it – it’s 18 acres after all, and a lot of work to keep weeds and stuff down.  I don’t think she’ll sell for a few years yet.  It made me sad – we moved there when I was 1, while my folks built the house.  My sister was born there.  It was my home.  But I realised that weekend that it isn’t my home anymore.  I’d like a place like that to call my own – although maybe not with 18 acres.  I would love an acre or two of land to have trees and plants and gardens on, and encourage birds to visit.  But I do not wish to live at my old home.  It was a relief to realise that.

 

• Oh, and I got a new job and quit my job.  I have two more weeks and then I am OUT of here.  It was a really tough decision to make, because there are lots of things I love about this place.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t loving my job, and the general craziness was sort of making me hate my life.  The decision was hard to make, but I am very glad I did.  The week after I quit, one of the managers came up and told me he was very disappointed that I was leaving, and told me all the wonderful things that they were going to do – get me on other projects, etc.  I was so angry I cried.  Hot, angry tears of anger.  Apparently you have to quit around here to get any attention – that did the same thing to the last two people who left, to similar effect.  Even though I’ve been asking for a year or more if there were any projects I could help out on, any opportunities, because I was bored and coasting, I’m still supposed to feel guilty about quitting JUST as they were going to do wonderful things for me, which were definitely in my best interest despite the fact that they had never actually asked me what I wanted.  It strikes me as very similar to the time I had an unfortunate fling with someone and after I told them I only wanted to be friends because I wasn’t ready to be in a relationship (which was true: but helped by the fact that the sex was truly, skin crawlingly terrible).  His first response was ‘who’s the other guy’ and his second was ‘but I was going to take you on holiday to New Zealand!’.  I did have a brief vision of sheep and possmerino, but since he probably would have wanted to do physical activities in the snow (a clear indication of how little he knew me) and the next time we spoke I’d been downgraded to Kangaroo Island, it was hardly an incentive to reconsider.

 

• Anyway, the point is that I have two more weeks in this job, then a lovely week in Melbourne, and then I start a lovely new job.  Speaking of, I’d better get back and do my old one.  Somehow only having two weeks left have made it suck even more.  Oh well, last time I have to do x and y, I guess.

I can sleep on the 7th

That being the day after we move.  Until then, not only do I have very little time to do things I like to do, I also appear unable to go to sleep in under three hours.  Instead I lie there, desperately organising things in my head, and stressing out about the fact that I am unable to sleep.

Oooh, oooh, wanna see something gross?

That, my friends, is what was underneath the old stove.  It is mouse poo embedded in old, congealed grease.  It smelt.  It took me a whole escape pod episode and half of  a Cast On episode to make it look like this:

Can I just mention that I am glad I bought a new stove?

Did I even mention that I did buy a new stove?  Here is a fuzzy picture of it still in its wrapping, sitting next to the new fridge, also still in its wrapping.

I went shopping with my mother and her new boyfriend and he convinced me to ask for money off.  Oh, didn’t I mention that my mother has a new boyfried?  I realise this should be a big deal, but since a) I didn’t exactly approve of the state of my paren’t relationships (personally I think divorce would have been a better option than suicide, but whatever) so it’s not like I feel betrayed on that front b) it makes her far less crazy and also more of someone else’s problem, and c) he’s a nice bloke (apart from his terrible taste in women) omg this is a long sentence.  Anyway, what I am saying is, I’m remarkably unfussed.  My sister is a bit freaked out and doesn’t like the idea of meeting or doing things with him, but since I dislike doing things with my mother anyhow, I don’t care.  His wife is still alive – in a nursing home with alzheimers and doesn’t remember him – and his grown up children apparently are not OK with the new situation.  Fair enough, too.  Hmm, I guess we count as grown up children.  His are ten years older.

ANYWAY.  The stove is an Emelia – it was the last one in stock and there’s a new model so I got it for just over a grand when it should have been 2.  Except that it’s got an electric oven, which is proving to be a bit of a pain, but it will sort itself out.  Well, I’ll sort it out, anyway.  The fridge is an upside down Westinghouse.  I secretly lust after a side by side fridge, but they are ridiculously large – I could do with one where the fridge was the ize of the feezer, but they’re all massive.  But the one I got will work excellently.  And did I mention it is BRAND NEW?  I am so excited to banish my old fridge.  When I got home from shopping for the new one it was groaning away and I just looked it and thought ‘your time is UP buddy!’

I am also excited about the movers.  MOVERS.  People will come to my house and do all the LIFTING and the packing and the wrangling of things.  They won’t say ‘do you really need all this wool?’ or ‘how much baking stuff do you have!’  Well, they might.  But whatever.  I won’t hear it because I won’t be on the other end of my massive desk, trying to lift it.

Anyway, I was going to misuse work time to write more (I was in early, ok?), but someone has just linked me to a fabulous job.  So I am going to misuse work time to apply for that instead.  Let me just say in closing: my friends are awesome, and so is my new yellow kitchen..

Milestones

Well, that’s christmas over.

I mostly ignored it, to be honest.  Which might be why the day itself was quite enjoyable.  It felt like my christmas in China did – not a day like any other, but not really like christmas, either.  I squirreled out of spending christmas eve at my mother’s house, which I always find extremely depressing.  Instead, she came down for brunch and present exchanges, and then the three of us (mother, sister, me) went to the family christmas lunch.  Which was only moderately painful, and my uncle narrowly avoided being racist, although he would keep skimming the surface.  My cousin’s new boyfriend was there (his idea, and I bet she resisted it strongly, being the best example of our family’s commitment phobia) and he was lovely. I stayed a couple of hours and then when it started to degenerate (naming no particular aunts), I went to Emma’s house for dinner and drinks and good people whose company I enjoy without any cringing at all.  Such a relief.

The weekend before this one was a bit tricky.  The Friday was my dad’s birthday, the Saturday was the day he killed himself, and the Monday was my birthday - and also the day he was found.

I had several christmas and birthday events on that weekend and in the end I only went to one, despite harrasment from one of the organisers of the three work events.  My birthday I spent mostly at home – I had the day off, thank god – and shopping with my sister.  I was a bit fragile, but I knew I would be.  So I wrapped myself in the bubble wrap of soothing activities, and put myself up on a high shelf where no one could accidently knock my emotional equilibrium over.  I will admit to a few crying jags, but they felt more like something that needed to be got out the way.  Something to bouy me up out of sadness, not being dragged down into it.  All in all, it was a smoother ride than I expected.

I did miss christmas – it’s a season that I love, despite all it’s problems.  I love the excitement and the fun and the feeling that this is a special time, a time to think and reflect and to consider others before yourself, to put extra thought into the things that make a life more than just getting up and going to work.  My year in China taught me to love it even more, and to choose the things about it that bring me joy and leave the other parts to one side. 

But every time I would hear a carol or see an ad and get a bit wistful, I would think ‘next year’.  This time next year, I hope to be alone in my own house, free to have the bits of christmas I like, and not some of the others (although they will sneak in).  And it won’t be quite as emotionally loaded.  I hope.

These photos are all taken from the spot on my couch where I usually sit to knit or embroider.  At a certain time of day the sun comes blazing in and the whole room is lit up in the most glorious manner.  If I sit here on the couch long enough, the light hits my project and lights it up.

I spent ages playing around with the settings on my point and shoot camera to try and capture something of what it actually feels like to sit there, bathed in the dappled sun.  When I think of the houses I’ve lived in, what I remember most clearly about all of them was the light.  And I always remember them at whatever time of day it was that the light was the best there. 

It makes it hard to see what you’re doing, but luckily this blanket didn’t need much seeing.  It’s Brooklyn Tweed’s tweed baby blanket (rav link).  I ordered the yarn (rainbow wool, and it’s lovely) for it before Emma was even pregnant, and started knitting it before he published the pattern – while it was still guidelines.  Luckily, I had the right needle size, gauge, and I had hit almost the exact right number of stitches for the halfway point when he published the pattern.

I bought the pattern because I was a bit intimidated by the icord edging (NO idea why, now that I think about it) and didn’t really want to do the calculations for the feather and fan edging.  Have I mentioned here that I highly dislike feather and fan?  The less time spent thinking about it the better, in my book…

I do have photos of it finished, in which you can see what it actually is, but I haven’t gotten around to uploading them yet, so you’ll just have to wait.  Here’s the rav link to my version, anyhow.

Lastly, I would just to say a heartfelt ‘thankyou’ to all of you.  To those I know, or know better, because of this blog.  To people I’ve met and haven’t met, to those of you who’ve been reading all through this tough year and before, and to those I’ve just met and connected with recently.  You make my world brighter, richer and happier, and I am so glad and grateful to have you all.  I am constantly amazed by how real, solid and truly helpful the community that I have found, through my blogs and yours, is.  What a wonderful group of women we are!

I hope this time of year was as joyful as it could possibly be for you all, wherever that fits on the scale.  And if I don’t speak to you again before then, here’s to a fantastic new year!  Bring on 2010!