Moving House (Well the Blog is....)

I was wondering why a couple of posts weren't showing up. Wondering, that is, until I tried to upload some pics tonight and they wouldn't .....

Ran out of space again, so my blog has moved.

Please let me know (e-mail) if you want the new address .

I've Been Busy..

The time off is almost over.

I got a fair bit of gardening done whilst the weather was fine.

When the weather turned sour I had a busy Tuesday - movies/Centrelink/Mums' birthday (she loved the helicopter ride gift voucher!) etc.

I can see the top of my desk and somewhat more of my kitchen bench than a week ago.

On Wednesday I resumed playing with the following:


















And ended up (after mucho hours) with this (almost finished, but not quite):

Birthday Time Again

It's my mums' birthday tomorrow, she will be 70.

It's hard to think of her and that age.

I've bought her a special and unusual present, I hope she likes it.

Tomorrow will be a busy day:
* Grocery shopping - cos I'm on hols and didn't *have* to do it on Saturday
* Movies - Wallace and Grommit with Mistyqee and Thunderbolt
* Try pick up mums' present
* Thunderbolt to go driving with his dad (he has a drivers test booked for Saturday!!)
* Get to the fabric shop to check the trimmings for the Gown of Doom I am attempting to make.
* Centrelink visit with Mistyqee (must remember to take something with which to amuse myself whilst waiting... oh hang on, Mistyqee will be with me!)
* Be home in time for when mum and entourage arrive
* Get ready and ..
* Go to dinner

All I can say is thank goodness I'm on holidays!

In Other News
In the words of War of the Worlds ... '... and still they come'.

I'm Armless

Methinks I will be armless tomorrow - as a result of much forking done on the lawn today (more details in my garden journal - there's a link over there on the left hand side).

I think next year I'll invest in a pair of those shoes with spikes on the bottom and dance my way around; it's gotta be easier than what I did today. (Hmmm an item for the Christmas wish list maybe)

My arms are already feeling weary, I'm not looking forward to them tomorrow.

Blog Change
Yay me! Have had the 'comments in a pop up window' item selected for a while now but it just hasn't seemed to be doing it (yes, republished the blog after changing the setting).

Today found the solution in the help file on blogger and after hand editing the html of the template I now have comments in a pop up window :)

Due to spam I've also added the comment verification thingy - sorry if you find it a pain, c'est la vie.

The Other Question About Self-Analysis
Earlier in the week I got to thinking about why I self-analyse so much, and it got some more grey-matter attention yesterday whilst weeding.

I don't think I've always been like this.

It seems to me there are a couple of reasons for it (probably obvious to others):
* The poor way in which I have 'coped' (read: not coped) with the events of nearly three years.
* The accusations flung at me as to my motivations for doing things (eg this blog).
* Work out how to not end up in the same situation again.

I have to stop typing, my arms are really weary.

More on Friends...

Whilst sitting in the sun today (aka weeding the lawn) my mind wandered around the Friends issue, and a dose of some more self-analysis.

About Me
I wondered and wandered down the road of 'am I like that?' and quickly came to the conclusion that I'm not. I don't just see/talk to my friends to bemoan my present/past circumstance; we talk about all kinds of stuff, sometimes I'm an ear for their trials and tribulations, sometimes they're an ear for mine. We ask each other opinions regarding each others' circumstances. No, I am not like that.

About That Friendship
My mind also meandered down the line of thought of 'could I be friends with that person/a person who has been like that again?'.

The answer was yes (though there would have to be a 're-balancing' of give and take).

Which made me wonder whether the other person would want to do that.

And I think the answer is yes. Is this just my ego/some kind of self-inflated view of myself saying that?

No.

It has been stated on quite a number of occassions that my friendship is/has been wanted, and not just the kind of 'friendship' (and I use the term loosely here) that it has been. That has not been possible, or acted upon (by the other party), for one reason.

So, could we be friends again? Yes.

The next big question is, of course, do I want to be friends again? Now there's a question...

On Self Analysis
And whilst weeding away, feeling the warmth of the sun on my back, self-analysing as I bottomed my way around the lawn, I came to think:

"What has all this navel-gazing gotten me; is it helping me?"

In some ways the answer is no-where. In other ways the answer is some-where.

I am more aware of what kind of person I am. I am more aware of what I value.

I also know that these things, whilst often my greatest strengths, can be my greatest downfalls/dangers to my own well-being.

I am more aware of not allowing anothers' needs to inappropriately subsume mine.

This is a good thing for my well-being.

Does it mean I have changed a lot? No. This is the reason for which I sometimes berate myself/feel I have not progressed much; sometimes feel that with the knowledge of who I am, and that this can lead to bad things, that maybe I should change.

Which lead me back to a thought I typed quite a long time ago ... 'but how do you change who you are?'

I am the kind of person I am, and my analysis still leads me to believe that who I am is not a 'bad' person. What I need to be keenly aware of is that I don't allow that to make me vulnerable to being abused (read: 'used'). (I seem to remember typing that quite a long time ago too. That doesn't bother me, to have taken so long and come to the same conclusion)

That means I live my life very 'quietly'; don't mix much, keep to 'safe' people. There are worse things in life...

Hmmm... still back at the 'it's too dangerous to let the real me out' stage it would seem. Maybe that's one reason some people join a nunnery/convent, maybe that's one reason people become recluses.

Is it right? Is it wrong? ... I don't know; it's just how it is.

Oh well.


Another entirely different question is why I self-analyse so much. But I'll leave that for another post.

Reasons to Celebrate

1. It's Friday.

2. I'm on holidays for a week (even so, with the events of today I won't be surprised if I get a 'help' call from the boss).

I even had a bourbon :)

Friends in Need

This really struck a chord with me ..

"High maintenance people often have unrealistic expectations of what a friendship should be. The dynamic is usually unbalanced with the high maintenance friend getting all their needs and wants met - and you getting nothing in return." (from The Sunday Times 18 September 2005).

I have felt that this is what has been happening in my relationship with a certain person.

At times when I am feeling that way I often stop myself and think .. but if they are a friend shouldn't I be giving them my support when they need it? The answer is, of course, yes. But the thing that stops me from berating myself for having been a bad friend is that I have not been getting anything back from the relationship - just being asked to give and give and give (or at least, that's how it feels to me).

Friendships, I think, are a two way street, aren't they?

And then I think 'but surely that is selfish", you don't be someone's friend (or do a good deed) because of what you will get back/in the expectation of getting something back.... that doesn't seem the right way to go about things to me, (in a business relationship/association then yes, probably; but not in a personal relationship) .... and so sometimes I do end up berating myself for not having been a good friend, for having (eventually) withdrawn support.

I end up thinking I must be a bad person if that's the way I view a friendship (ie viewing a friendship from the 'what's in it for me' perspective).

So I was then heartened to read, under "how to handle your high maintenance friend" the following:

"Friendships are characterised by mutual enpathy and support."

That is not happening in this particular relationship, and it is precisely because that is missing that I end up in the selfish/expectation/bad friend conversation with myself, which makes me end up feeling that maybe I am a bad person afterall.

Friendship is meant to be a two way street.

It seems that the newspaper had a message for me today, and I am confident again that I am not a bad person.

Some Things Never Change....

...for example - the battle with kids over dishes. This is one that has fallen through time unchanged, I'm sure.

Being Friday night means it's pizza night (of the take-a-away variety).

The 'deal' in this house is allegedly that whoever cooks the dinner doesn't have to do the dishes.

Mistyqee cooked pasta monday night (as she usually does), I washed and (due to mucho experience) advised Thunderbolt the dishes were to be dried before he went to bed.

Tuesday night I cooked.

Wednesday night I cooked.

Thursday night is CYO - Cook Your Own (due to late night shopping), it's usually frozen meals which mean hardly any dishes.

Friday night I buy pizza for dinner - very few dishes.

Tonight I stated that I would not order pizza until the dishes were at least started - yep they were still sitting there from Tuesday night.

I didn't lose my cool, I simply stated that I was meeting my responsibilities but they were not and, therefore, that I would not meet my responsibility tonight (ie buying pizza) until they had (at least started to) met theirs.

Dishes were started within 5 minutes.

I really dislike the whole 'fighting over dishes' thing. We were supposed to have an arrangement. They are old enough (16 and 17) to negotiate together over washing/drying. They are old enough that I shouldn't have to remind them there are dishes they are meant to do.

Now we have a new arrangement.

A new arrangement has been struck, only time will tell, though I am holding out no hope that the battle of the dishes is over and done with.

And so it was ..

I did have a good day today..

First appointment included some (hoped for) confirmation.

I have cream to keep my eyelid condition under 'control' (cant be cured but control is fine and all I was looking for) . Rather ironically one of the cautions on the box is 'Avoid eyes' ... what the?

And I got about an hour in the wonderful sunshine!

Hope you had a good day too, back to the grind for me tomorrow.

Looking Forward to Tomorrow

Tomorrow will be a great day.

The forecast is for fine weather and I have the day off!

Unfortunately most of it will be taken up with a financially-related appointment and an appointment with the doc (to see about what can be done to calm down my eye rash).

But I'm sure I'll be able to steal some sunshine time along the way.

Considered putting some grey-matter time to the main issue at hand, but realise there is no point - the next step is not mine. May have a look at the letter I've been trying to write and see if I can make some progress there.

I Should Try This Maybe ..?

Buy a car, then a year or more later, because I've neglected the car/not looked after it and it's just not worth what it was back when I got it, approach the finance company and say "I think I've paid enough for that car, it was overvalued, I'm not going to make any more repayments".

The first Falcon we bought devalued much quicker than expected, due to their being a flood of that particular model onto the market following the collapse of one of the Ford dealers here in Perth (this was a number of years ago).

Maybe we should have tried the above on the finance company back then (not that we hadn't looked after the car in that instance)?

I have a good idea as to the reaction we would have received!

Should Do's ..

I was determined to do some of the 'should do's' today ... a very unexpected phone call almost stopped me.

But today I got the washing done, mowed the lawn, did some work in the vege patch, weed 'n' feed'd the lawn, and did a monor amount of tidying up.

All this in between writing a very long letter, which I'm not sure I'll even send.

Horoscopes

Read whilst laying the couch doing 'nothing'..
"You may make a super-human effot to put a past situation behind you but sentiment and regrets are still likely to surface ...."

and another:
"Your sense of relief could come in many forms, from emtional right through to physical and financial."

Like I've said before, I don't believe in horoscopes particularly, but I still find it interesting to read them from time to time.

Feeling: Concerned

Back to Blah

I've fallen back into the 'blah' funk :(

So many things that I 'should' do ... write letter to lawyer, wash clothes for work, mow the lawn, weed and feed the garden, tidy up, organise my correspondance, go out, talk to people...

And there are things I could do .. start sewing the cut out dress at the top of that list...

But I'm back to ZERO motivation to do anything.

Today my achievements are:
1. Filled the car with petrol (otherwise I wouldn't make it to work on Monday)
2. Grocery shopping (otherwise the childerbeasts would revolt)
3. One load (out of about 5 that need doing) of washing.

I don't like being in this funk .. back to everything being a waste of time .. even wasting time doing nothing seems like a waste of time (that doesn't even make sense does it!)

Blah blah blah, think I'll go do a whole lot more of nothing.

4 days and counting ....

Motives

It's a curious thing ... a person's motive for doing something.

Something I sometimes find even more curious is as to why it becomes so important to us to try fathom anothers' motive.

Sometimes I wonder why on earth we bother trying to work out a persons motives for their actions/behaviour. I guess it's just a part of trying to work out what is going on, trying to make sense of a situation that doesn't, on the face of it, make sense.

But we're humans, we seem to often do things that make no sense, things for which there is no reason - at least no reason that makes sense to others.

Perhaps it's because we want there to be 'mitigating circumstances' - like someone who steals a loaf of bread because their children are starving. Or because they've been brainwashed with 'incorrect' information/ideas.

Sometimes the answers aren't pretty, sometimes there is simply no answer to the question, sometimes when we have the answer it still doesn't make sense (and then either give up trying to understand, or keep looking because 'obviously there must be another reason).

Sometimes when we have the answer we 'get it', can at least understand (if not forgive) the behaviour.

What is this need to understand anothers' behaviour?

Why are we humans cursed with the need to ask the question 'why'? (ROFL)

Qetesh - WatchCat Extraordinaire or Back to Living in a Prison

The WatchCat
It is said that Burmese cats have dog-like traits ... this is true of our Qetesh (there are pics of her here) . Very early on she showed us that she could play fetch and she's reasonably well behaved (for a cat!) on her tether and leash.

We found she has another dog-like trait - she's a watch dog, and thank heavens for that ...

On the weekend I was weeding the front lawn (yes, yes, I know, very anal, possibly obsessive, I weed my lawn by hand, but that's not what this is about ...), Mistyqee was in the back room of the house playing on the computer, Thuderbolt was further inside the house. The weather was pleasant enough so the glass sliding door was open, with the screen door shut but not locked.

Mistyqee looked up from her screen, a rather unusual occurrence, because Qetesh was 'growling' (you know, that throaty thing cats do) towards the back door. Luckily Mistyqee could not be seen from the door .. there was a youth standing there looking in, who then took off across the back yard.

My money purse was in plain site on the kitchen table, about 5 steps in from the door. My handbag was even closer as I'd dropped it at the bottom of the stairs after the jaunt to purchase Thunderbolts' guitar .. it was two steps at the most, from the back door.

Probably he had seen me weeding out the front and decided to jump the back fence and see if the back door had been left unlocked. I know this happens very often, read about it in the paper all the time.

Yay for Qetesh
I'm so relieved for whatever it was that scared him away - Mistyqee is sure he didn't see her, so the only thing could be that he didn't want to come in due to Qetesh drawing attention to his prescence. (It surely couldn't be her size, Burmese are not large cats)

Who knows what he would have taken if he'd come in, and worse, what would have happened when he saw Mistyqee right there too. These are the things that go through your mind.

Paradise Lost - How Do you Get it Back?
So now Mistyqee's feeling that home is a 'safe' place is diminished once more. It had taken quite a long time for us to feel safe at home after the last 'visitor', though having had the security screen put on the weak point of the house certainly helped.

We are living in a prison again - when I go outside, even for the briefest reason I take my keys and lock the door after I've exited.

We've been made to feel vulnerable again, shown the 'darker' side of life that we all try to pretend doesn't exist, or at least, wont affect us. It's not a pleasant feeling, and I feel helpless in trying to re-assure Mistyqee - because I can't. Working in the industry that I do I know that all you can do is slow them down; if they want to get in they will.

I've been made to feel again the vulnerability of being a woman who lives by herself a lot of the time. It would only take a few weeks of watching to see the routine of when there is only one here, and when there are three.

But what are we to do? I can't change what time I have to be at work, and what time I finish (though the finishing time is a lot more variable than the starting time), I'm sure the kids school wouldn't appreciate me wanting them to start and finish school at different times every day either.

I don't like living like this, I don't like not feeling safe in my own home. We all need a place where we feel safe (harkens back to Maslow). For me it usually my home ... maybe it would be better if it were a place inside of me instead of somewhere physical that can be invaded.

Where do you feel safe?

Happy Day to The Sperm Spouters!

For Fathers Day we invaded the kitchen of the Dad and made him breakfast in bed - I think this is becoming a new tradition for Mothers & Fathers day .. we did it for him for Fathers Day last year and they did it for me for Mothers Day this year. It's special - neither of us having a partner, and teenagers who usually get up well after us means breakfast in bed is definately a thing of the past; so it's a real treat :)

We left him in bed muching on toast and bacon (which he hardly ever buys), wrapped up in his teams' colours with the newspaper and a good book to read.

Thunderbolts' New Trials
Thunderbolt bought himself a guitar yesterday! He's never shown much interest in music, doesn't even play CD's very often (about once in 3 months he might play one). He had asked for one as a Christmas prezzie but no one got him one.

I hope he persists (persistance not being one of his strong points) ... in one day he can play Skip to My Lou. I can't believe they still have those kinds of songs in learners books - most of the kids wouldn't even know that song! Surely there are more contemporary songs they could use.

It reminded me that I have a guitar out there ... somewhere. Lent it to a 'friend' many moons ago and now have no idea where they are. I don't know that I would play if I had it here, but it was given to me by my dad (RIP) - had been damaged in a removal and he had to araldite the head back on, but it had a great sound.

Note to self: must stock up on bandaids for sore fingers!

Feeling Old
I feel really buggered tonight ... not that I've been overly energetic, but two 1am bed-times and having to get up at a reasonable hour have taken their toll methinks.

So I'm going to go lay on the couch, switch the box on and read one of the two books I'm slowly making my way through. The feeling of wanting to read hasn't returned, but it's something to do that doesn't take much energy, and Harry Potter doesn't need much brain activity either (don't know whether that will be true of the Da Vinci code yet).