Picture perfect

I'm not going to lie, my life is as boring if not more so than my blog. Which means the photos in my phone, well, boring. But here are a few that I carefully selected to share on facebook to make it look like I do interesting things. I'm sharing them here for Eden's Fresh Horses.

I'm a lucky wife, even if my husband doesn't know
how to put dirty undies in the laundry basket

Who doesn't snap photos of tiny geckos
while on the can?

Cat latte, obviously

Unmade bed and 14 week bump/food baby

A spidey that stayed on my windscreen
for a 20km trip to work on the freeway 

Kid and me getting ant bites

Undies boxing in the hall. I'd be in big
trubz if he ever sees this on the internets

Poison 

At a birthday party - before he gets a toy

and after. That's the birthday boy on the
left, obviously his mother is a better teacher
of humility than me

Do Angels Exist?

Source:  http://goth-and-magic-world.blogspot.com.au/   

I have always been a morbid kind of person. I grew up believing in ghosts and angels and demons, so definitely that I would lie awake at night with the covers over my head terrified to look out into the darkness. In our house in the country you had to pass a screen door to get to the bathroom. Late night pee breaks would fill me with dread. I would close my eyes and run past that door for fear of the Mothman or some freaky dark angel standing under the clothesline.

 My mother has a strong connection to the afterlife. Or fascination with it. I don't know, but don't ask her if you get spooked easily. The day I told her I don't have a guardian angel she kind of shot me this 'oh god, she knows'  face. She denies any recollection of this at all now. Mum on the other hand has so many angels. She sees them all the time in various things, in butterflies in particular. I think it's a bit cliché how many people see their butterfly angels, but it must be an easy way for angels to communicate with their peeps.

Anyway, for years I believed I don't have an angel. I asked and looked and begged and meditated on it. It's a similar feeling of rejection that I got when I'd ask and beg for Jesus to be my pal and walk with me the way he walks with mormons and stuff. It didn't seem fair to me and I convinced myself that it must be my soul; maybe I've done bad things in a previous life?

The angel above my son's bed

These days I am pretty sure that someone is looking out for me in some capacity. This year has been a big overhaul of beliefs and spirituality for me, and it's only March. I'm not in a rush to figure out the meaning of life, but I know what I feel and I feel that an angel might have found me. I really think spirituality and psyche go hand in hand; and unhealthy psyche leads to an unhealthy spirituality and vice versa. Maybe that's why I have had this awakening of ease - I'm getting better.



Eden from Edenland take photos of the feathers her angels leave behind. What do you believe?

Apologies

I've spent years being sorry.

Sorry and self deprecating and pessimistic and inward and shy. I've spent 24 years with the heavy guilty of a catholic upbringing on my shoulders. I used to get dragged to mass on Sundays to sit in front of a priest and apologize for shit, often making up things to be sorry about when I couldn't think of anything good enough. I spent my high school years being sorry that I didn't fit in, feeling sorry for myself. And sorry that my parents wouldn't buy me brand name runners and I wasn't allowed to shave my legs. I lost count of how many times I gave teary apologies to my ballet teacher when my dad wouldn't pay for 'waste of time' lessons.

When I left home for uni I was suddenly sorry for not being all that was expected of me from my boyfriend. Sorry that I didn't feel the love of Jesus in my heart and didn't enjoy cramming for exams to become a star student the way he did. I was always apologizing for being myself. The day I had to tell him I'd gotten knocked up by some mean older guy from my work lives uncomfortable in my memory. Oh, how sorry I was the day I had to tell my dad. I was so sorry to the kid as well; sorry you landed this mangled wreck of a couple for parents. As I struggled with PND and Rick with having a girlfriend who he got knocked up who had developed PND I found myself sorry enough to consider taking the cowards' way out.

Then something really amazing happened. I don't know how, and I can't pin point a time when, but something has changed. My soul has grown. My depression has shrunk. Suddenly I have a new found inspiration that grew from my own self. I realized I don't need to file my beliefs into an organised religion and all of a sudden the world feels so big and wonderful. I realized that I am doing a good job as a mum and actually make quite the kick-ass wife.

I no longer hate myself!

And I'm not sorry at all.





Linked up with Edenland for this sucker, sorry that's all I seem to do lately :)

My peeps

I'm a bit slow to board the meme train this week. Last weekend's Edenland Fresh Horses Brigade is about sharing your 'people' on the interwebs. I don't really have any people, but I do have my bookmarks toolbar up there on my browser of the blogs I regularly visit. So thems the tricks:

In no particular order.

Edenland - I can't remember for the life of me how I came across this blog, but I adore it. An Australian mum keeping a journal of her one wild life. It's pretty incredible. She has a way with words, and to be honest a pretty interesting story to tell. Eden is also a total bad-ass. Of course, if you came here via the Wild Horses link then you already know this. 

Enjoying The Small Things - a painfully beautiful Californian family fronted by Kelle Hampton. She tells stories with amazing photography and an unmatched zest for life. Sometimes I read her blog and feel like the most plain, uninteresting woman in the world. But I also find myself inspired to grab life by the balls and just live it. I really love this blog.

Slightly More Depth Than a Teaspoon - a woman I went to school with who keeps a blog about her family life. It's quite surreal to reconnect all these years later (ok, we're not that old) when we've grown up and had babies. Our lives are different but the same, and sometimes when I read it takes me back to the best bits of my childhood. 

The Superficial - a total shift of pace. This celebrity gossip blog is completely politically incorrect and very offensive. It makes me snort my coffee out my nose and keeps me coming back for more. I keep sharing bits on facebook and no one seems to get it. It's hilarious ok, get a sense of humour!

My Baby Is Average - a potential megalomaniac who stills wears nappies. I can totally relate.

That's it. Well, that's not it, but that's it for today.

You can't spell Funeral without 'FUN'

Today's link up for Edenland's Fresh Neigh Neighs Brigade is a discussion on funeral songs.









I haven't attended many funerals in my life (furiously knocking on wood), other than grandmothers and uncles and what not. I have been fortunate, and I am more than aware and grateful. My mother works in a nursing home so she goes to a funeral every other week. I really don't know how she does it, and more so how it doesn't eat away at her compassion. She amazes me constantly. 
Death has a weird affect on me. I am fascinated, terrified and obsessed. Recently an old uni friend lost her husband to suicide and it had me in a tail spin of research and reading stories and sobbing over remembrance facebook pages. My husband gets his undies in a bunch if I try and share a sad story with him; he prefers to bury his head in the sand when it comes to tragedy and it worries me that one day someone close to him will die and he'll just explode. I think that if I face all this horror that exists in the world maybe I'll be spared, or at the very least prepared. Probs not, I seriously doubt my ability to handle a crisis considering my life has been such a garden of roses. 
I have thought about my funeral a lot. I have had heavy periods of depression where I've planned it and written my own eulogy (yagoogley) in my head. Songs change up a fair bit depending on the circumstance, but I have always envisioned it to be really sad. I know it's selfish, but I want a grey day with everyone in black. Followed by a rip-snorting party where everyone gets shitfaced and has fights followed by hugs and laughs about how amazing I was. For now I'll have to work on being amazing so I leave a legacy worth remembering behind. 
Possible Funeral Song 1.


Possible Funeral Song 2.



To be honest, all of what I just said is untrue. I really hope that when I die the people I leave behind remember that I spent my life trying to be a good person, and that I really loved everyone. I hope they realise that my body is just going to become part of the earth and that it is completely unnecessary to spend time and money on what happens to it: bury me in a box or cremate me and throw my ashes out to sea, whatever - I don't care and nor should they! All I really want in my life is to raise my kids to be good people who treat each other how they want to be treated.


The end!

Edenland's first meme!

The totally amazing and probably the greatest blogger ever Eden from Edenland has begun creating memes for me to enjoy. Pretty stoked. It's funny that the first one gives me a chance to have a play with the subject of an argument Rick and I had this morning. Eden asked us to share our handwriting. And Rick really lets it blow up his skirt when I accidentally come to have his pens at my desk or in my handbag. 

Rick is an executive chef, or what's known in the hospitality world as a pen pusher chef. He had a whinge to me this morning that I keep pinching his good pens that he has to go to the stealthy lengths to steal  acquire from the receptionists and his club. He reckons he is only allowed one at a time, so he swaps a near empty pen for one full of ink. Like this guy I had in my bag today: 

I'm not even that into them. I like ball point pens I can put a lot of force into; I think they make my squiggly swirly handwriting a little neater. But all's fair in love and war. Or what's yours is mine. Whatever, I have a lot of these pens hiding around.

I actually get to write notes all day in my new job and I really dig it. Previously I was working in a restaurant where everything had to be entered on a touch screen, and I was surprised at how badly I missed writing things down. There is a silver lining to working crappy casual jobs in hospitality some times - see also this lovely scone I brought home from work last night. Deliciously free, just like that pen!