tntnikkibint

I would not trade my life for anyone's. Mine has been-and is- an amazing, breathtakingly beautiful journey of pain and happiness.

We got the house!

I have found a lovely house, and we've put in an application- will have an answer by Wednesday next week- which is ridiculously long! I want to know now! The dogs are the sticky issue- one dog is bad enough, but a German Sheppard and a Boarder Collie are understandably questionable to a landlord- especially when the property is a lovely old historic Queenslander like this one.;

http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=404218609&f=0&p=10&t=ren&ty=&fmt=&header=&cc=&c=51932474&s=qld&snf=rbs&tm=1257543521




Unfortunately, I'll have to continue to drive up there to view more homes till an answer comes in, as timing counts now and I'll need to have another ready to be applied for if we are turned down for this one. I'm hoping to arrange to take possession of new place next weekend, which would give me a one- week overlap with both houses. Then I can take the time to move smaller fiddly things, like breakables, houseplants and paintings and such in stages, leaving only the beg things for the moving truck on the 20th.


Classes are over. The course was fantastically informative and run, though a serious overload of information. I have already registered to do another short course through them. Now all that is left is to arrange the exams- which I am stalling on till after the move. Don't want to wait too long or the info will start leaking out my ears and be lost forevermore.

Heading out shortly to drive down the coast. Have a serous need for ocean air and wide open spaces.

I'm a student this week, doing an intensive course which will enable me to become registered as a real estate agent in Queensland. The local colleges offer this course as a 6 month program.

The intensive course I am doing is one week long.

Each day brings with it two manuals, each between 100 and 200 pages long, and each manual has an exam. Fail rate for the exams stand at about 70% on first attempt. You get one re-write, then if you want to continue you have to pay for and attend the course over again.

So the packing has come to a standstill. Which will make next week an interesting one- need to find a place in a city an hour away, and pack up this house (as well as ensure all the other reprobates get their arses in gear and get their shit out of here as well so I can get my bond back!), and move.

And I'm still not stressed or scared.

I actually can't wait to enjoy a little peace in the new place, wherever that is:)

We only relocated to Ipswich in May, needing a bigger place to house the ever-growing tribe. When we did so, it was a doozey of a move, but necessary, to ensure everyone had their own space- and no one had to resort to sleeping on the couch anymore!

I never anticipated moving again anytime soon, that's for sure.

And yet, here I am this weekend, packing our extensive library which is now threatening to choke out the hallway. I love packing, and the excitement of change and renewal that comes with a move. I love the unpacking and creating a new home out of the chaos of packing crates. I hate the physical move itself, and the loading and unloading of moving trucks.

Scootah has been working for about 4 months now in Toowoomba, and making the hour long drive twice a day for that long. It's become unfair to expect him to continue with the commute which makes his days unbearably long, and gives him no social life or down-time during the week.

So we have made the decision to leave the _House of the Wayward Perves_ and relocate to Toowoomba for 6 months/a year, to allow Scootah to enjoy a better work/life balance. It was in our plans to relocate to the Gold Coast in late 2010, and we will still aim to that, but the drives have become too much for us both to cope with.

We will be moving in three weekends, on the 21st- notice to leave was strategically planned so that we could still attend Retribution in November without being exhausted from moving. I have not actually found a place in Toowoomba yet, and as I will be in classes all of this coming week, locating a property to rent will be delayed until next weekend at the earliest- but I live living on the edge like that...I had to set a deadline to ensure action- on everyone's part!

I have had a look around, and there is plenty available- we will look for a 3-4 bedroom right in the heart of the city. I'm confident I han make this happen within the deadline.

Our boy is looking for work to come with us, and will stay with friends of his here in the interm, as there is no suitable transport available to him to allow him to live with us while retaining his current job.

So look out, Mountain....we are about to invade!

I turned 36 a few weeks ago. My husband is 8 years younger then me, and our submissive 16 years younger then me. I've been feeling old. For the past year r so I've found new aches and pains in places I did not know I had. Mornings meant climbing out of bed and having to perform a dozen stretches just to get mobile.

Turns out I'm not old. My bed just sucked. First night on a new mattress and I feel 20 years younger this morning.

So now I don't feel old. I just feel like a dork for not thinking of this sooner.

http://bit.ly/90icE

That's near me, and is what it looks like from my windows. House is completely shut up, but I'm still breathing in smelly dust. It's truly gross.

Because the vet today was not enough worry....the Boi arrived home from work tonight looking pale and still and announces he's had a wee accident and could I please drive him to the emergency?

Dinner on stove and in oven got turned off and I race him out of there, trying to get the whole story out of him. Despite the fact that the new car I just so considerately shopped for, being careful to ensure he got cruise control, he was speeding. Lots. When he saw a police car, he had to brake suddenly to get down from 140+ to the required 100 speed limit, but skidded out, hit the gravel, drove off the road into the grassy median and hit an upright post.

Three hours in emergency (staff were absolutely wonderful there), and he's home, with arm in a sling for the next two weeks, hopped up on morphine and with a small pharmacy's worth of pills to be taking for the next week or so. He's pulled the AV joint between his clavicle and shoulder and damaged the joint, and has some bruising developing on his lower back.But x-rays of everything shows nothing broken.The nurse told him he got off lucky with the speed he was going.

I told her maybe not, as I'm not done with him yet.

I'm ready for this day to end, now. Really, I am. Yep. Definitely had enough of today.

Have just returned from an early morning emergency run to the vet. Our Boarder Collie, if she were a person, would be a big tittied blonde bimbo. Last time we had to do this, she had swallowed a tennis ball. halfway. completely cutting off all possibility of air.

This time she has managed to open a gaping ragged wound on the inner thigh, complete with veins hanging out and nerve damage extending to the other leg. No idea what she did it on, just found her lying on the deck vaguely pink from head to tow with blood loss.

Such a fucked up way to begin a day. she's under anesthetic now so they can clean her up and assess just how much damage there is. At ten years old she's had a good run of it, but she already has a pin in her hip from a car accident, and I don't think she can manage if her legs wind up paralyzed.

Our German Sheppard was lying with er when I found her- the Sheppard she normally won't let touch her, that is- cuddling together like they were best mates. He's now pacing the house looking for her.


Update;
Have just collected a much-sedated doggie. Turns out the ragged hole on the leg actually included damage up in the abdomen, with internal stitches needed to liver, pancreas and intestines. And she severed her femoral artery and loss most of her blood. Her gums and mouth are bone- white.

Three more visits scheduled in the next week to check on her, remove the drain and then remove the external stitching. High iron diet to increase red blood count and absolutely no unnecessary physical activity for 2-3 weeks.

Packed a picnic lunch yesterday morning, dragged the Boi's sorry arse out of bed at ten and went for a drive round the countryside, eventual destination a dam and lake about a half hour out. No joy though- we got there to find "no dogs allowed" signs up everywhere- and us with one of the pups in the car with us. The last three days the temperatures have gotten to the mid 30's- too hot to leave him in the car whilst we lunched. So back to the house we went. Lunch on the deck followed by a swim in the pool- the first of the season.Later a trip to Ikea resulted in some great bargains, but will make for a lean week as we've overspent- which is not hard task at all, seeing as we are about to file for bankruptcy.

It's shortly after 5 am, I've been up for an hour already but its still too dark outside to go tackle the gardening, which is what I would like to be doing. The garden is coming along, all the kitchen herbs are thriving and the tomato plants went into a planter yesterday. I have strawberries which will need planting today, and still need to decide what I am doing to the small plot next to the front door, which the last tennants left mysteriously unkempt. We also have Mango, hazelnut, fig, paw paw, lemon and lime trees in the backyard- but it will be a few months before I see any fruit from those!

The new cat has settled in well. She's a fluffy white and ginger thing that was hanging outside of the Boi's work for a few days, and while friendly was dirty and unkept. So naturally, he brought her home. A week on, we've had her fixed and named her Stockholm (we kidnapped her and she loves us). Other moggies not yet 100% convinced she is a good thing. With two dogs, three cats, a rat and 2 fishtanks, I think it is time to put a ban on more animals.

Repairmen coming this morning to see to the oven door hinges and to fix the dishwasher- I'm not holding my breath- they have been trying for four months to figure out why the washer won't work. With 6 adults in the house, you can imagine the amount of dishes there are to be washed- thankfully, many of the housemates are submissive types- even better, two of them are service-oriented!

I somewhat reluctantly agreed to accompany the Boi on a shopping trip today. Normally this results in me being bored and exhausted while he delights in shiney things for hours and hours. But I was actually pleasantly surprised. He kept me plied to coffee to stave off the grumps, treated me to a manicure- black french tips with startdust sparkle acrylic that looks smashing. He got himself some new clothes, and we found some good bits n bobs for an upcoming pirate themed fetish party. Plus re-stocked the pantry to bursting.

Returned home to find the pool man had been and cleaned out the pool from its sad winter state and had it sparkling and ready for summer,just in time, as the temp got to aove 30 today! Better still, one of the lovely submissive boys who lives here had cleaned up from last nights party, and cooked dinner as well.

It's good to be the Queen!

I'm knackered- but in a good way.

we've just finished moving the last of one of our house-mates things in out of his storage facility, most of which is now residing on our deck. Thankfully, its a huge deck so accommodating a lounge suite was actually easy- and useful!

It's a georgeous Friday afternoon, and lal I want to do it sit out here with the laptop and while away the hours.But it's not to be- we have a dozen or so people coming to a bbq this evening to celebrate the boi's birthday- Wednesday was the third anniversary of his 25th.(He refuses to get any older then 25).

I have a mountain of re-potting older established plants and planting seedlings that needs to get done too- but where to find the hours? Have just sent two of the boys out to the dump to haul away a large TV we have not turned on since before we moved and an extra dryer (We had 3?!) as they did not get snapped up on freecycle as I had hoped they would.

The new/old car I bought for Sean is running well- I'm still waiting for it to fall apart. It's a '97 ford Falcon in cracking shape that I got for 4 grand all in, and all I've had to do is find a wreckers to get a missing ashtray (we don't smoke, but were missing having a place to keep change) and headlight button. It's his first real car all of his own, so I'm trying not to tease him too much about the fact that I shopped for it, bargained for it and it's registered in my name. I'm just nice enough to let him drive it while I stick to the old hyundai. Poor girl has seen better days, but I'm not suite ready to retire her yet.

Life is ok. :)

Ain't so sunshine-y anymore.

I think I've lost myself somewhere in this past year. Either that or dealing with life and the things that are affecting those I love has simply drained me of lifeforce. I've always been a "glass half full" sort of person- someone who was always able to be patient to wait, because things always get better with time, right? No matter how rough my day, I always went to bed knowing things would be a little better tomorrow.

I cannot remember the last time I went to bed looking forward to a new day. Most nights I don't care whether or not I wake up.

I get out of bed, and some days I can't find the will to shower. Some days I cannot be bothered to brush my hair. Life is too much a bother. I'm too busy un-willingly playing Mommy to everyone around me- because I have to. Because if I didn't, their lives would be worsened. In at least one case, they'd probably decide not to live anymore at all.

I used to be strong. Now I'm just a shell. Empty. I've actually stopped believing that things will improve. They've been so fucked for so long, despite my best efforts to right them, and with future circumstance being what they are, they won't get better anytime soon. And I'm out of energy to care anymore.

This is not a cry for help. It's not a goodbye note. I don't have the energy to top myself, either.

I have been breaking myself into small pieces and packaging them out to people in my life that need help, and accidentally I've given too much. And there are so many people that need my help right now. My niece is here for a few more months, and her mom has just come out of the hospital after major surgery. She's hurting and missing home, and a little fragile. I have a friend and her teen son here because she had a crazy ex who was abusive, so they are here indefinitely licking their wounds. And my husband is shadowed by the depression demon. Husband number two, depression number two. My batting average is just not that great.

All I want is for someone to take care of me. I've been self sufficient almost my entire life. I'm the caregiver. But I think I'm broken. So few people in my life have needed less from me then they have given. Funny to think of it, but Paula was probably the best Daddy I've ever had. One of the few dynamics in my life that never required me to give a mountain of emotions.

So who has the superglue, then? I could use some.

My husband's Dr recently changed his depression medication. So on Monday, he hit the big breakdown I have been expecting for months now- maybe closer to a year. And off to the Emergency Department we went.

Hospitals are obviously not a happy place- even if you are not depressed. To their credit, once past the admitting red tape, we only had to wait about 20-30 minutes to see a psychiatrist. The hospital nearest us is in a low-rent area, so the waiting room was full of the usual poverty-striken crowds- a guy being treated for addiction, a teen mother with her gaggle of half-dressed children, and another ranting that no one had given her a voucher for a free taxi home,and so on. I also think that tuning the TV to medical drama soap operas in a waiting room is generally a bad idea. But maybe that's just me. Since we had never been to this hospital before, I first had to go through the process of getting his registered as a new patient.

"Can I help you"?

Me;"Yes- my husband is being treated for depression- he was on Effexor but they have just swapped him to Pristiq, and he's had a breakdown and needs to see a psychiatrist"

"Where is your husband?"

Me; "He's the full grown man man sitting on the floor behind me curled up into a ball crying and sobbing so loud you have to shout at me"

"Well, what's wrong with him?"

Me "He is having a breakdown and needs to see a psychiatrist"

"But what is wrong with him right at this particular moment?"

Me; "He is unable to speak or function in any manner, and he wants to die- now get me a damned psychiatrist"

"Is he agressive?"

Me; "No, he is not aggressive- he is just... broken. Please help"

After a few more minutes of this, ~I~ wound up gettng aggressive, at which point a supervisor come along, took one look at us and directed us to go sit down and she would send a psychiatrist out to collect us shortly.


A while later they discharged him to go home, after a counclling session wherein they decided the best thing for him was to maintain his routine and not disrupt things too much. Which would have been fine, except that on Tuesday, I had to pack him onto a plane to go back to work- at a mine site 4000 km's from here, in the middle of a big fucking dessert with no Dr's on site, only a nurse.And then the fucker forgets to check in with me at night. He called today to tell me he was to tired to talk and fell asleep right away, and to say that he had texted- the texts still have not shown up. He sounds more together. But I won't feel comfortable until he is back in my arms alive and breathing.

I'm so scared.  I wish i could fix him. Then again, I tried to fix my first husband too and could not help- he got better only after we were no longer together. Go figure, huh? I'm one of the strongest and most cheerfu people I know, and yet, I keep making my men depressed.



And on to other news';

We've listed our home, finally. it goes to auction on May 1st- this is a good thing. it's too small, it costs too much, and it keeps us finacially tied to his father, from whom we wish to distance ourselves. So now I have 10 days to make the place view-able. Which will entail renting a storage unit, boxing up and storing evenrything that is not absolutely essential, clean the place top to bottom, and do a few handyman bits around the place (Re-install a cupboard, paint, etc).

Last weekend we drove to a darling friend of our's property, 5oo miles into the outback, and left at her place our two large friendly-to-the-point-of -possibly-being-irritating dogs. The place absolutely echoes now in their absence.




And with all this stuff ahead of me to do, today it is rainig so hard that I have decided the best thing for me is to curl up in bed with a book.

About a month and a half ago my husband and I joined a gym.

I'm a big chick, and I have never been bothered by my weight. Overall, I'm fairly healthy, though inactive. I rarely get sick, and even when I do, my immune system works in overdrive- I have healing powers like wolverine! Yearly physicals  revesl great colestrol, normal blood pressure and overal goodness. My first husband pushed me alot to lose weight, which did nothing except piss me off and make me stubborn. My current has never pushed me- because he is happy if I'm happy.

But he was not happy. Depressed and without energy for anything, he needed an outlet. And I knew it. He was a big child, and then in the early 2000's, he suddenly decided he'd had enough and dropped alot of weight. Over the past few years hes slowly gained, and it bothers him.He still sees himself as a fat child when the reality is he is an average man, not fat. Just inactive.

And so we joined a gym. I hoped that with both of us joining, we could motivate each other and therby not be able to flake on the couch each night with the excuse of wanting to spend time together. The gym has a pool, and I've always enjoyed swimming, so I envisioned myself swimming while Sean weight trained.

I have to stress, exersice was not something I defined as fun. I am shocked, therefore at what has transpired. For the first three weeks, I begged off some days, finding trivial excuses to stay home. So I went to the gym 3 or 4 days a week. But rationed that it was better then nothing. I was bored with the pool. I had tried the nightly aquasize class, and found most teachers sucked. Mondays morning class teacher was great, so I'd find myself going to her classes no matter how  was feeling.

Ay week 4, I was well and truly bored and undermotivated. I popped in on saturday for a swim to find the pool closed for an event. So I went to the gym instead, rode the bike and cooled down on a treadmill.

Click.

Ten minutes in, hot and sticky, with my thigh muscles burning, I was feeling fantastic. Three weeks on from this discovery and my attendance has gone up to 5-6 days a week, and I'm the one whining at Sean and draging him physically out of the house to go to the gym. I am absolutely addicted. The crappiest sort of day at work, no desire to do anything but crawl into bed, and I know if I get myself into the bike, in 15 minutes I'll be feeling like sunshine is coming out of my ass.

Three weeks later, and my energy levels have shot through the roof. I'm ready to take on anything, and feel super accomplished.  I cannot gush enough. My ten minute bike ride and ten minute cool down of the first day has morphed into a 7 km bike ride (8 kms twice a week), followed by half a km of rowing, and 1.5 km treadmill cooldown. Another week of this and I'll have boosted the rower to one km and then will add the evil looking cross trainer machine into the mix.  I think that the wee after that, I will also throw in a weights based routine once or twice a week as well.

We've done nothing different in the diet field- we eat a varied healthy range already, with our problem being portion size rather then wrong food choices. But even this is righting itself- for reasons unfathomable to me, I find myself eating smaller portions as I feel full faster. This does not make and sense to me whatsoever- if anything, I expected to be hungrier.

Last week, I noticed my pants are lose and I have to leep hauling them up. Yesterday I bought a new pair of track pants and two tank tops. All items had to be bought in one size smaller then I've been wearing.

And so it begins.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder
You get your fill to eat
But always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small
When you stand by the ocean
Whenever one door closes, I hope one more opens
Promise me you'll give faith a fighting chance

And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
Exerpt from Lee Ann Womack's I Hope You Dance






We stumbled upon this statue, Dancing Bear (by Pauta Saila) when wandering through Ottawa a couple of years ago. He is the first piece of public art from Nunavut in the far north to be displayed in Canada's capital city.

The Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic use the Dancing Bear as a recurring art theme, typically in soapstone carvings much smaller then this one. The polar bear is top of the food chain, the ruler of his environment, and feared by all. Because of this, it is considered a great honour, and a very desirable thing to come back as a polar bear in the next life. And the Dancing Bear is seen to be just that- a person's soul re-incarnated as King of the World, and understanably quite happy about it.

Today, I feel like Dancing Bear.

I'm writing here again as a means to drag myself out of the funk I have been smothered by for a few months. But it's time to uncurl myself from my safe little warm ball and venture out into the land of the living once more.

I've largely been frustrated with some things in our life which are completely fixable, but which have gone unattended to because my husband, whom I adore utterly and completely, is sometimes a twit:)

I am being unfair, of course. My husband as Asperger's, and it makes him see life in a very different sort of way. When things are out of control, he just does not function at all...wherein I (and most people, I think), feel the need to wrestle control back, he just gets overwhelmed and refuses to deal with it as though the problem did not exist at all.

We're financially struggling. We have not yet paid off the big trip (18 months ago we travelled around the world), as the credit cards are still full and the bills are absolutely crushing us. We decided months ago to re-finance the house, pull out the equity and use it to clear the bills and start fresh. He's so scared that they will say no to re-finance that he is dragging his heels and being slow to do everything. There are documents he need to gather and such that he keeps "forgetting". For months. Despite daily reminders. It is ENRAGING me to the point that I want to throttle him somedays! I think we have everything ready now, and we will get the papers to the mortgage broker this week. Finally.

I have no intention of making this blog a place to bitch about him- this will be the ony entry in which I will focus on this...but I also need to clarify where my head is at right now- mostly because I feel for the first time in a long time that I am in a good place again. It's all dark and dusty in the corners of my head, and I've spent too much time in there lately with the cobwebs. And recently I had the sudden realization that none of this is his fault. I've been focussed too much on the nit-picky things.

It is partly because I am so far away from my friends, my family. I moved here in 2004 after meeting him on the net, and hauled up everything I knew, packed my life into three very large suitcases and boarded a plane. Everyone we have here are "our" friends. So naturally, when the thousand of little things that crop up in a relationship bother me, I've ben sitting on it. I don't want to complain about the petty things to our friends.

But, if I had MY friends here, I would bitch about stuff, we would laugh about it, drink a bottle of wine and it would be over and forgotten, instead of me thinking and overthinking,dwelling on it until it grows. Just little issues, miniscule daily routine passing things getting blown out of proportion till they seem like big issues. Once I made that connection, everything got much sunshine-y-er in my head.

And the really big, overwhelming things about him? Are the good things. The patience that is without end, the willingness to go along with my randomness, the ability to deal with the crazyness of a woman with PMS, the astuteness to know exactly when to kiss me, exactly when to tickle me till I strugle not to pee myself, exactly when to surprise me with a bottle of bubbles and a blowing wand.

I've never met a man quite like him. I never even knew such creatures exsisted.

And so, If I have to drag him, kicking and screaming into reality till he gets his shit sorted, then he'd best hang on tight, cause it will be a bumpy ride.

Life....here we come again.

...but I am thinking about starting to charge admission in my house.

My cats are scat and watersports fetishists, it would seem.

Any move towards the hallway, where you could, conveivably, be going to towards the bathroom, results in a stampede of truely impressive proportions.

There are only two cats, you see- well one and a half really as one is still a kitten- but in that moment in time, anyone would swear there is a plethora of shrunken elephants charging you from behind.

Your best bet is to stand still and wait till they pass, allowing a moment for the dust in their wake to settle. But no one every waits. Human instict kicks in and all you can think of is "arghhh! Run! before you are trampled underneath their mighty feet!"

Usually running presents another problem. Both the cats are too dumb to avoid feet. So, inevidably, one will be stepped upon. And, drama queens that they are, they can't simply wince, learn from their mistakes and move on- no- thye have to freak the fuck out, youwling and hollering about like someone is poking hot sticks into their ears.

So then you have to stop and check that they are ok. Difficult to catch a hurt cat, too. They just wont stop wiggling and writhing about. So after you've managed to grasp one of the slithery little bactards by getting the tip of an ear, a back paw and most of a tail in your fist, that tends to set the whole howling process off again.

5 minutes later and you are in the hallway, dancing from one foot to the other because you are busting to pee, and the little furbag is finally calm enough to begin purring contentedly- until you make the move to lay it down. Then its all huffiness and indignation.

Continuing along the hallway, and making it finally to the bathroom with milliseconds before your protesting bladder gives way, you will usually find the door has developed this weird inability to close, and make a strage squeak with repeated attempts.

This usually menas that one - or more frequently, both cats and stuck, halfway in the bathroom and halfway into the hallway, stretched thin in the middle, attempting to hold their spleens in as the slamming door does iots best to guillitine them.

And so begins the epic tale of yowling for sympathy once more.

Usually at this point I allow them in the bathroom- not cause I desire and audience, but becuase I'm mortified at the idea that I might, as a full grown women in her 30s, wet my pants like a toddler.

Cats are supposed to be refined. Dignified. Elegant. Especially ours- both purebreds- one lilac point burmese, one black oriental. Somehow this elevated sense of being does not get bestowed upon those around. They could not care less that you are pising enough to put out a small forest fire. They think nothing of your privacy.

Winding about your legs, standing on hind feet to see under your ass like they don't have any idea what the noise is. Jumping into your lap, head butting your chin and demanding that you treat them as they are your sole purpose in life.

And as if this is not enough, their newest game is to goblin into the bathroom overnight and steal away with the toilet roll.

I find that when this happens, it is best to open the door to call out to Scootah and ask him to find it or bring me another. I do this partly because I really need the loo roll to wipe- but also, I'll admit to finding it amusing to watch the wee furry little bastards ears prickle at the sound of footsteps in the hall, watching them sprint off excitedly, and seeing, a moment later, the Boi coming round the corner full tilt, eyes wide as he tried to change step mid stride as to not step on a stray cat limb.

Perhaps it is a spectator sport, afterall.