Zero Tolerance

When you hear that, you know exactly what it means, don't you?

Of course you do! It means: no bullying, no blazing, no putting anyone down in public, at schools, online or offline, over the phone, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Snapchat or any other social media and really exactly why in the hell would you want to?

My question to you is this: would you go and push somebody around face to face if you told them off from the complete and total safety of your keyboard? No, you wouldn't. I wouldn't. It's just not like me to something that backwards and idiotic.

So, why to people who live on the other side of the planet take it upon themselves to come onto my Facebook page and tell me what I can and can't upload onto it? Why do they message me and tell me to take down what I have uploaded - and other people find lovely, sweet and inspiring - and yet they find it's not what they want to see today? Why do they push their crap onto me and make it out to be something I should be taking on when I have enough on my plate in my life as it is? 

I'm not expecting an answer from any of you. But if you want to answer, go ahead. I've already posed this question on Facebook and have gotten these questions answered from one place - it's okay if your up to answering a bunch of questions from me today.

But this person was grieving and he happened to be having a really awful day - as you do when you grieve (and we all grieve in different ways) - and he just wanted to dump his emotional wastebasket all over me. 
However, what he didn't take into mind was that I'm also grieving, but not over just one person (like he was), but I'm grieving over three people that I've lost over the past 18 months. I deal with my grief in such a different way to him that he thinks I don't care - but I do. If I let my grief takeover my life like he has, I'd be a wreck.

I'm doing positive things to help not only myself, but others as well. I'm working on my health, self-worth, self-love and I'm talking to my family. I'm painting, reading, writing, and I'm also creating so much I've got three exhibitions in the next month that artwork is going into! I'm hoping to get all of it sold! 

That's not all. I'm working on my garden, keeping my social contacts active - all my friends know I'm going okay (not great, but okay) - and yes I have my bad days, but I'm working on getting better with my dearly departed friends who meant so much to me. I've been working on my garden, on my car, and decluttering my home office; one bag at a time. I'm planning a road trip, planning on re-arranging my home office and getting another desk and a new bookcase... I'm keeping myself active.

This guy seemed to not care that I'm doing my level best to keep positive about what's going on in my life as I try to help people deal with the crap pouring from the social media and the news stations every day... my Facebook wall is one of those few which is about inspiring others, love and caring for each other. I do talk about what's going on in my life, but it's more often than not an inspirational picture with a quote on it. This isn't just for him to look at, it's for everyone - as it's a public post for the world to see. 

I'm afraid to say that if he doesn't like what he sees, he'll have to just deal with it - as I do when I come across the crap and violence which does come across the newsfeed on Facebook. 

We can't control what happens in the world, but we can control how much we see of it and how it affects us. If you don't like something on Facebook, don't look at it, scroll past it, don't comment on it, don't stalk the uploader and don't tell people what they can and can't upload - that's being an arsehole and a controlling person in their world. 

If you can't deal with your day, don't go online and make it other people's problems. We have no idea how your day is, what your pain is, or how things are going for you, but if you can't deal with what's on your plate, it is time you did go to your local doctor and started talking to them about your pain. Going online is not the way. 

I just had to get this out there because this is how I feel. 

Tip-Toeing Through Life

I have found that the past few years have been a minefield of apologising to everyone around me, being sorry for who I am online and stopping myself from saying the 'wrong thing' to people who don't like what I do.

And I'm not the only one it seems.

I've just spent the last hour or so saying sorry on Facebook and on another site I'm a member of for other people's bad moods - and I damned well bloody sick and tired of tip-toeing through the tulips all because others are insulted about what I say or do.

And you know something? Those same people are all ready to say and do things towards me which insult the way I live, who I am, what I've said and how I feel without even thinking about it... without editing themselves, without stopping and seeing if they're going to stand on my toes about what they're about to say.

So, right now, I'm sick to death of the insulted generation of people who are insulted by everything we say. They get insulted by all of the things on the news, the way people dress, the music that's from the 80's (and the decades before that) saying it's sexist and horrible. The insulted generation are insulted by how things were in the past and expect everyone from that time to apologise for being a part of it, being brought up in it and not knowing any different because it was the only way they knew how life was.

Well, you know something? I'm not sorry for who I am. And if you don't like it, that's too bad! I'm sick and tired of being the nice person who thinks twice before she speaks, dresses like Grandma because people will think she's showing too much leg, and goes out too much on her own - but really, what's it to you what I do with my life? What you should be doing is concentrating on your own life and stop looking at mine. 

I'm not apologising for anything I've done, anything I'm currently doing or anything I'm going to do in the future. And like I said, if you don't like it - tough!

I'm Disgusted!

Yes, you read right! 

I'm disgusted!

As a lot of you know - or may not know - I'm currently fund-raising for The World's Greatest Shave; and this year, I'm shaving all my hair off to donate it. And there's a lot of hair!

So, I jumped into the fund-raising joys in December and the Leukaemia Foundation sent out my pack just before New Year's Eve... so I got myself into gear just as the New Year started out. I approached my local doctors at the Springwood General Practice to find they had changed hands and managers.

I thought, okay, no biggie. This should be okay.

Boy, was I wrong!!

A month later, I dropped in there to pick up a prescription to find my donation box and two posters were nowhere in sight! I asked the girls at the counter, 'Where's the donation box for the World's Greatest Shave, and the posters?' They acted as though I'd never been there... I craned my neck and found my donation box had been shoved onto a bookcase, out of sight of the public!


Oh. My. God! Where they kidding?

'What is it doing there?' I pointed at the box. They all looked at it and shrugged, 'And where are my posters I gave you.' they shrugged again.
One said, 'The posters could be in the office, I'll go and look.' and she did and said that they weren't there, 'You'll have to talk to Ruby.'
'I did talk to Ruby.' I said. 
Within 24 hours, the donation box was out on the counter, but I never saw my posters out.

Just yesterday, I went to check on the donation box. It's been 3 weeks since that incident, and I wanted to see how it was going. I found .30c in the donation box and my posters were *still* not out on the walls. So I asked, 'Where are my posters?' 
'Of what?' the two at the counter asked with doe-eyed looks on their faces.
'For the World's Greatest Shave. The donation box has only .30c in it.' I said, 'This is horrible.' 
These two shrugged at me, 'Oh, they could be in the office.' they didn't make any effort to see if the posters were in there, then one said, 'Or in the bin.' 
I left the donation box there and walked out, then stopped at the doors of the shopping centre, turned around and went back to the doctor's surgery, 'You know, this isn't going to work. I asked this surgery in good faith to do this for me - and this surgery has done this for me since 2011 - and you just... I'll move the box somewhere else. Forget the posters. I've more.' I walked out, I'm so disgusted in how I was treated, I almost started crying.

I walked straight to the Springwood Pharmacy at Arndale - across the way from the surgery, and talked to the owner there. Not twenty minutes before, he had offered to take the donation box off my hands and put it on his counter. 
He saw me and asked, 'So how much did it have?'
'Only .30c.' 
He was disgusted.
'And they ditched my posters.' 
He took the donation box straight away, 'After this, you can come here every year.'
'I'll bring posters on Monday.'

I can't believe a doctor's surgery has done this to me after all this time! This is the same surgery I go to to see a doctor - not just to drop off donation boxes. This is my own private doctors I see for everything. I can't believe that just because it's changed management, it's treating a charity like this. 

Yes I'm disgusted... and they should be embarrassed for doing this to me and to the Leukaemia Foundation.

Going Organic

Since I started working on my garden in the past month, I've been seriously looking at what I'm eating - and looking at labels more closely as well.

And ... well, you wouldn't believe how much salt and sugar is in a lot of things we put in our shopping trolleys. 

So, I've been slowly going organic in my home. First it was me installing the green house (which I'll be saving up for a bigger one to be able to grow veggies and other fruits so I can save myself money each pay) and I've begun growing the herbs and a Black Cherry Tomato vine in there - it's looking great! 

Now, I've planted out some garlic - which will take a year to harvest. I don't mind; as I'm a patient person when it comes to plants. 

So, seeing I'm the type of person who loves to cook all my meals from scratch, it's something I've begun to look at when I'm shopping. I've gotten into eating ketchup - and not the ordinary one, but the organic one. Sure it's a little more expensive, but it's worth it too! It has less sugar and no salt in it; and I read the ingredients as well. 

It's amazing when you go organic in your diet... everything changes - you eat less junk food (even though you do eat it, and know it's there, you don't eat as much of it as before). You drink more water and tea. You sleep so much better than you ever did before; and you have so much more energy as well. 

All of this takes time to happen, but it happens. However, when it's only you doing it, it becomes difficult to go anywhere where nobody else is eating organic foods; as they think everything is organic when it may not be. I know this sounds like I've joined a cult - but read the back of everything you buy (believe me, I've had to in my life of being allergic to a lot of things in food) and you'll find out there's a lot of additives in food you never knew existed. 

Going organic is great - but it's not cheap. What makes it cheap is when you start growing your own food, herbs and cooking everything from scratch... that's when you see how long it takes to do things, like make a pizza. The dough takes around an hour - and the pizza establishments put sugar in their dough to make you eat more; but when you make it at home, there's no sugar in the recipe. It just tastes wonderful all on its own. 
If we all grew our own herbs and veggies and made time to cook everything we ate, I think we'd be a little more healthier, the big shopping centres will have to support the better way of living and there'd be more fruit and veggie markets around. 

But seeing that's in a world of another universe where none of that exists, I guess we'll have to start off small and work on this together, one person at a time. I'll do my bit, but if you wish to join in and 'go organic', that's entirely up to you. You have to stick with it though - and yes, there's an upside to it:

You lose weight.
You enjoy fresh food more.
Cooking becomes something of a love.
You look at your garden differently.
Shopping is a whole new experience - not a nice one.

I have been changing the way I live for years - slowly moving my tastes from Cadbury's Chocolate to Lindt Chocolate... from sweet and creme-filled biscuits to gluten-free seaweed biscuits. From margarine, to nut oil spreads to good, old-fashioned butter. It's taken me time to learn to use Olive Oil and butter in my cooking and not sunflower oil or any other types of oil... it just tastes so much different and better. 

And going organic shows in my blood test results. My sugars are a steady 4.6. My cholesterol is high (but that's my medication do that bad crap) but my lifestyle has kept it from doing anything awful to me. My weight has stopped yo-yoing all over the place. I'm going well for somebody in my mid-40's, when I thought I'd be a complete mess... and I'm not. 
Don't get me wrong, I have had times when I do fall off the healthy, organic ways and munch into some of the worse food around - and I did it recently when a friend of mine took her own life - and I felt awful. I didn't sleep, I felt sick and I put on weight from it all. So, within a few weeks, I jumped back in and worked my way into taking care of myself again even more than before because I'm still grieving and feeling her loss even more than ever now I'm finding myself singing (she was a singer) and enjoying the music more than ever too... and keeping to the good eating way of life is best.

Going organic isn't a cult, it's taking care of yourself in the right way. I call it 'Living Like My Grandparents' because it is. It's living and eating the food, making the meals, drinking leaf tea and full-cream milk and cream and butter the way it used to be. It's getting outside and working in the garden every weekend. It's going for an afternoon walk every day to see the day out - no matter what the weather - and it's keeping yourself away from the takeaway food which is clogging up our arteries and making us sick. 

Let's stop making ourselves sick and go back to eating like our Grandparents did. If you look back into the 1940's - 1970's, you won't see a single overweight person in photos or films. They ate burgers, pizzas and other junk food, but it was all without the crap we have in it today. They didn't sit in front of computers and they worked out, walked and swam, enjoyed dancing and going out to dance halls (and by the way, where are those big dance halls today - oh that's right, the governments have destroyed them all!). The kids went out to roller skating rinks and enjoyed life... and that's how life should be: organic in every way.  

I Promise Myself

In the last few hours, I found out one of my dear, sweet friends killed herself. She had huge mental problems and even though I urged her to get medical treatment - as did everyone else in her life - she didn't. 

Her name was Hannah Northedge. 

Google her, and you'll find the news reports.

I have known Hannah for over 30 years, visited her once in 1997 and have found in the past few years, she had some health problems. She was convinced she was in pain and doctors were testing her for everything... but this year, they stopped testing her and wouldn't see her. 

This isn't right. 

She was a great jazz musician who was a dead-ringer for Vivienne Leigh (the lead actress from 'Gone With the Wind'). And you something? She worked herself so hard, she was a star who burned so brightly, that she ended up burning herself out.

This has brought me to promise myself something. I'm going to live my life to the fullest, enjoy every bloom of every rose, of every flower, love every sunrise and sunset and live each day as much as I can possibly enjoy it - and fall exhausted into my bed knowing I had lived that day without wasting a single moment in it.

I may have something wrong with me, but I went to the doctors, and I went through the tests and I'm on medications to help me live my life as full as I can. 

Living a full life doesn't mean taking it by the horns at 5am every day and going everywhere, doing everything full charge ahead. 
It can mean enjoying the rain falling on the roof on a cold morning while you're sleeping in on any day ending in 'y'; just because you feel like it (this is if you don't work or you're retired).
Get out and enjoy working in the garden and making it work for you; then sitting back and watching it grow over the next few months; only maintaining it as it does its thing.
Being the only one up at sunrise to go for an early morning drive and enjoy the silence of the beginning of the day - making it something of ritual as the car and you feel as though you're the only things on Earth.

My promise in this life is to just be. I promise to live my life fully and totally until my life ends at the right time; not until I say so. Life is far to precious to waste and I don't wish to waste any of my life because I'm in pain or have problems with my health. I've had problems with it and went to the right doctors for it. This will take time for me to get through - my friend dying so suddenly - and all I can do is live my life in the best way I know how.

I promise to live, be positive and be the best me I possibly can be... that's all I can promise. Right now, though, it's so hard to be positive - I'm doing my very best.

Living In A Super-Sized World

I've been noticing a bad thing happening around me lately - and it's only since I've been helping Mum go through her old things from decades gone by. I've noticed that way back in 1960's and 1970's everything was much smaller.

I'm not imagining it. I brought out a set of wrapped up cups and she told me that they were coffee mugs she had bought in the late 60's and used. These lovely mugs are a quarter of the size of the ones I have here at home and it got me thinking about how it all works - I mean, how does the government bodies think that it's our fault that we're getting fatter when everything is so 'super-sized' now?

If you compare how our grandparents ate back in the old days, you'd see them having a huge breakfast, a medium lunch and a light snack at dinner - with some small grazing snacks in between those meals (and I mean just cheese and biscuits with a cup of tea not a piece of cheesecake or anything rich). And they caught early nights of around 9pm because the television stations shut down at that time. 

Now, look at our lifestyle now. 

We have 24 hour, 7 days a week television of the most crappiest programming you'll ever come across - even on Foxtel. And a lot of us get up at 5am, rush around stuffing our kids' lunchboxes full of ready-wrapped junkfood we'd never touch personally and expect them to eat it, then race off to work by 7am (and drop off the kids to school by 7:30am or so) and then work our guts out until lunchtime - which most of us probably eat at our desks of whatever we've packed ourselves (if we're lucky) or takeaway food from a nearby restaurant or canteen, then we're back at it again until we finish work in the late afternoon only to rush back home in peak hour traffic and arrive home in the dark.
We barely want to eat dinner - not that we have a family meal together at the dinner table - and we fall asleep in front of the huge, wall-sized television at around 11:30pm... only to repeat this process the next day.

You know, eating the crap, processed food that's on the shelves of the supermarket isn't good for us. But on the other hand, a lot of us don't have time to make the food we want either. Yes, we're between a rock and a hard place and it's not getting any better for us.

However, not only are we stressing ourselves out paying for a house we barely spend any time in, going to a job where if we drop dead tomorrow, they will replace us with somebody else within the week, it's also that we no longer know how to slow down anymore.

We've forgotten how to speak to each other - instead we're forever texting or snap-chatting. We're glued to our televisions and phones just in case we miss out on something important when the most important person is right next to us, right in front of us and yet once that person leaves, we don't know what to do next - or how to get them back; or worse, what we did to make them leave.

In this super-sized world, we have so much going for us, so much offered on a huge silver platter to us, everything is right at our fingertips. We have all the power right here on the internet and yet... 

...yet... 

We have no idea how to use it to best of our ability.

Because it's such a huge amount of power, we have begun to self-destruct. Instead of taking in a little of this power of what we've found and what we've been offered with the new technologies, we've been folly enough to jump at it feet first and not realise that it's also going to be our undoing if we're not careful. 

Already there's signs showing that the super-sized world is becoming far too much for the Human Race and we must do something about it. If you look at the news, it's been going on for some years - and everyone is ignoring it. 

For me? Well, it was to do with drinking mugs from the 1960's compared to now. A little bit of coffee is just enough ... but too much? Well, you'll never get to sleep at night and wake up feeling like crap, not ever get that energy back and you'll know something's not right, but not sure what. Then you'll make yourself another cup of coffee in that big mug you usually use. And seeing you've never used anything else, how else can you see the world in any other way than the super-sized one you've grown up in? 
You don't - not until you are handed a cup from 50 years ago and find that it's a quarter the size of the cup you've been using; and realise you're eating too much, drinking too much and not sleeping enough. 

Until then, there's going to be a certain lot of the population who have the smaller cups and another lot of the population with the larger cups - both think they're right. But we all live in the super-sized world and only one lot of the population will survive - who do you think will it be? 

Fears In Our Lives

I've just been on Facebook, cruising around looking at some groups I'm a member of and found that people get really angry at the smallest things - like for example if I have an actual opinion of my own.

Yes, Lord forbid I have a real opinion about something which isn't of anyone else's.

In one group, somebody took a photograph of a spider and uploaded it onto the group discussion and asked what kind of spider it was. I said that I wouldn't care, and to kill it. Well, the backlash that came from that comment was huge... people asking me why, and how horrible I was! They didn't think twice in putting up piles of those stupid angry faces. Instead, why didn't they ask me: 'Oh... are you scared of spiders. Sorry about that - of course you'd say to kill it.' 

And this is another thing: why is it that one person's fear is something hilariously funny to another? 

Okay, I'm terrified of spiders ... and I mean I'll kill the smallest one around just in case it disappears around the house somewhere and grows into something I don't like. Yeah my mind plays games like that. I'll kill it before it does anything - even if it's been hanging about in the corner and it's only the size of a penny and won't hurt anyone, I'll still kill it.

I'm also terrified of clowns - those hateful, grease-paint-covered people in big floppy shoes and wigs with the cotton gloves! You won't see me screaming or anything, I just go really quiet and start backing away slowly, staring at them. I don't like them at all - not since I was seven years old and I went to a circus and one thought to 'entertain' me. In reality it freaked me right out! 

Another fear I've got is needles. You know when you go to get a blood test, and you can just walk in and get it done? Yeah, well, it takes me days to work up the courage to actually walk into a place like that and get a blood test done - sometimes I just don't get it done because I'm so scared of those stupid things. And it's because I had been getting blood tests since I was 2 years old every 3 months until I was around 9 years old... not a big thing to be scared of really; not until you have to be an adult about it - like I had to be last week when the doctors had to put me to sleep in a hospital and the guy knew I didn't like needles and hid it from me (great person to do that).

But when I was in high school, they did the T.B test (which was a stamp the year before) and I had to have half the staff sit on me and somebody hold down my arm - and this was after 3 1/2 hours of them trying to talk me into it. When they finally did get the needle near me, the nurse told the principal, 'Next year, go back to the stamp - you won't have somebody like her in the mix, and it'll be so much faster.' And the following year, they did.

So, why is it that we as a Human Race make fun of another person's fears, thinking it's something small? I don't understand it - and never will. I don't make fun of another's fears simply because I have my own fears which people think are stupid. 
The reason for us doing this is because deep down inside we don't want to be seen as sensitive to another's feelings and seeing them as a person with their own fears - and therefore have our friends think we're not going to think the same way at them. Yes, we fear rejection from our own tribe if we don't make fun of the people we do make fun of; instead of breaking away from them and thinking for ourselves.

Isn't it so true that our fear of not being ourselves in this world is also how we filter our lives on Facebook and on the internet? I don't filter myself online or offline... and if people don't like me for who I am, well, that's tough. I'm not changing myself for them - and it looks like they're not going to be part of my life... right? 

Fears - it holds us back, makes us tougher, causes weakness in some and then keeps us in check as well. But if we didn't have them, we wouldn't be human either. 

Keeping to Me

I've lived in the same unit complex for over 15 years now; and I've learned a lot of things about a place like this.

I don't like living in unit complexes and seeing how long I've been here, I don't want to be living in another one anytime soon after moving out of here - and really do you blame me? There's a car park next to my place, I hear everything going on in everyone's lives. I smell it when somebody is having a cigarette, or has burnt their meal over the back fence and I even hear them having conversations right at my back fence.

Oh, yeah, I really want to move back into one of these places.

Noise is a big factor as well. I've put up with so much around here that no matter how polite I've been I've always been told to 'go fuck yourself'... yeah, nice. It gets to a point where I just don't care and when people say that to me, I walk off, call the police and let them deal with them. And I don't have the problem in the head, those who think it's okay to curse and swear at me do. All I'm doing is trying to get a good nights' sleep. 

Over the past 2 years I haven't made any effort to make any new friends here - and do you really blame me? I keep to myself and declutter my home, do my grocery shopping, get in and fix up my garden, watch movies/tv series on dvd at night while I knit and drink my green tea. 

I lead a very quiet kinda life. 

But I never used to.

It used to be all drama for me here because I had nothing better for me to do around here.

Now I have a car, I don't want the drama or problems of everyone around me. I want them to leave me the hell alone. 

I'm not here to solve everyone's problems. I'm here to live my quiet life of an artist, a gardener, a writer and an op-shopper. 

I don't want to hear people partying from dusk until dawn. I don't want to hear the fights which cause the police to come out and arrest people. I don't want to be the one people ask all the questions because I've been here the longest (we do have a Body Corporate - look them up and find out what you need to, people). 

I live here. I'm a resident. I'm not here to solve problems and I'm not the caretaker. Cleaning up the drains before a storm is not my job, neither is it to clean up the damned garden outside my house (that's why it looks like a dump). 

I'm keeping to me because I'm doing what I want to here. I'm not a loud person. I'm not annoying anyone and I don't want anyone getting into my face anymore. I'm getting too old for the drama and the 'Neighbours'-like lifestyle people seem to think is normal in places like this; when they forget that 'Neighbours' is just a soap opera and would never happen in real life. 

Real life is what you make it. It's not supposed to be easy, it's not supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be an ongoing journey of what you work on for yourself. Once you understand that you're a work in progress for your entire life, well, that's just the beginning of the work on yourself. It took me years to figure that out - and I'm still learning about keeping to me. 

And still, people don't get it. 

My Rage At Road Rage

When I went out and got my license, I was 19 years old; and it was a necessity to get work, as the buses and trains didn't run as well as they do now. There weren't as many cars on the roads, the highways and roads didn't go to as many places and the cities weren't as huge and bustling as they are now.

But as time went on, my illness caught up with me and I was forced to stop driving... and unless you have a similar illness you have no idea what that's like. Catching public transport instead of driving is horrible - especially when you know how to drive a car.

However, after around 20 years, I was allowed back behind the wheel of a car and it felt wonderful but nerve-racking as I didn't know if I'd remember the rules again.

But I did - and as I pulled out onto Kingston Road, it was as though I never left the road; and yet it felt as though I did in so many ways.

So much had changed.

Traffic lights worked faster.

People drove faster.

People's tempers flared faster.

And the faster people drove, the faster their tempers flared and turned into road rage... and I've also had that problem too.

But as the past few years have gone by, I've learned to swallow my pride and just let those raging idiots be who they are... and if they want to be screaming around me with their high beams on, calling me names, okay, that's them. The one thing I don't do is pull over or stop (unless it's unavoidable).

Really, though, you have to get it through your skulls, people! Are we really going to kick the shit out of every single person who pisses us off on the road - like that poor guy at Yatala; who by the way is in a coma because of that mob who jumped on him? I mean how damned childish can you be to go after a tradie, beat the crap out of him then run away like cowards when the authorities show up; leaving him for dead. 

What in the hell did he ever do to you? 

Recently, I had another driver try to run me off the road in a road rage incident - it was only two weeks ago. I was on the way home from a friend's house at night, and I accidentally put on the wrong indicator signal at a round-a-bout (easily done by anyone). Well, somebody out there got really insulted and tail gated me for about 3 kilometres with their head lights on high beam until we hit a red light, where the driver almost got out of his car to approach me. 
If it hadn't been for another driver asking him exactly what the hell he was doing... well, I don't want to know what he was going to do. 
The other driver ordered him back into his car (which he did) and the light turned green, I drove off and the insulted driver cut off the other guy and - on the next round-a-about came up next to me to scream at me that I was an idiot (and some other name I didn't catch)... and he took 3 kilometres to do this and nearly ran me and himself off the road?
The idiot ran the next red light - which I stopped at - and took a side street where a cop car followed him down. Now... that was just Karma! 

Okay, anyone can use the wrong indicator, but it's not right to loose your beans on somebody in another car who does this. It's not like you're enforcing the law, and if you're a driver, it's best if you do watch carefully what people are doing. After all, I've seen other drivers have their indicator on for about 3 kilometre s and not even know it! Yet, I didn't run them off the road and scream at them that they were idiots.

Road rage is becoming a huge problem in our society - and it doesn't matter if you're young or old - it affects us all. Whether you're a person who it's been done to or somebody who has road rage under your skin, it's something we all have to think about carefully when we get behind the wheel of a car. 

The one thing I have found is that you must concentrate on your driving, how you concentrate, watch other drivers and what they're doing and be aware of your surroundings. Check your mirrors all the time, and remember to realise that just because you're having a shitty day doesn't mean you can push that onto somebody else who isn't. 

Don't make your shitty day somebody else's. 

Back to the Real World

Yesterday, I went out to my art class and hadn't even left the unit complex when I saw a Dad walking his two kids out the front to see them off at the bus stop. But he had given one of them his phone to play with - the youngest one - and she proceeded to walk all over the road, in front of my car. Of course I stopped, waited until she was pulled of the road by her Dad and then crawled past. But she was out in front of my car again before I knew it with the phone up in front of her face not looking where she was going.

Now, her Dad became very frustrated with her and took the phone from her, pocketing it and telling her to watch where she was walking - which didn't do anything for her sense of direction. She took the phone from his pants pocket and started looking at it again (he didn't know she had done this). By this time, I was at the car gate waiting for it to open; and the little girl walked straight into the back of my car with the phone in her hand! Her Dad snatched it from her and walked around the driver's side and told both kids to 'come around here' but they walked around the passenger side of my and in front of my car (just as the car gate cleared my car) and ran to their Dad, who yelled at them. He spotted that his daughter had yet again had in her hands his phone! He grabbed it, put it away - again - and then smacked her, then her brother who asked him why he got smacked. The Dad told the older child it was for not doing as he was told (following his father's direct orders) and the youngest for taking the phone when he had confiscated it from her more than once and not watching where she was walking. 

Now... I watched this whole thing and am wondering exactly how are we going to bring up children to understand that those blue glowing screens aren't the end all and be all of everything? 

Okay, I have a smartphone and I use it a lot, but I don't go wandering around with it glued to my face all the time or have it plugged into my ears. I'm also on the computer and on the internet - but only for a certain amount of time. 

There has to be something done about the generation of children we're bringing into this world, as they're going to wind up so engrossed in their computer world that they won't understand or know what's going on around them. 

Seeing how I was brought up in the 1980's where computers were in their infancy, and now they fit neatly in our pockets, I think it'd be a great idea if this generation of children were introduced to a few days a week where they were disconnected from the Wifi completely just so they didn't have the convenience of Facebook, Google or texting their friends. This is so they are forced to get their backsides outside and to breath some fresh air and not air-conditioning, to pick up a real book, get in and and get their hands dirty with some gardening or taking out the rubbish without throwing an all-out tantrum that they're going to miss out on something online... oh yes, that all-famous FOMO. 

And before anyone jumps on here, telling me that's not possible, well, I have at least one day a week where I'm not online. I don't have Foxtel or Wifi in my house and I have recently gone without data on my smartphone and found it rather refreshing to not be bothered by endless texts or any weird phone calls from scammers (yes, they need to know if you've got data to actually call you - strange but true). It was nice, quiet and interestingly mind-clearing to not have data on my phone for a week, simply because I couldn't afford it. 

I seriously think it's time we all turned off our phones and computers for a day and dragged our families out into the real world kicking screaming to breath some air, look outside, turn our faces up to the blue, blue sky (which really isn't blue, but an illusion - I'm not going into here) and enjoy the lovely thing called Nature. Yes, we seem to be missing out on that lately. 

We Are What We Eat

Mainstream television bores me. Really it does; especially the advertising for what we feed our children!

I mean, who would go out and buy pre-prepared popcorn in a bag for your own child for the lunch when you can easily make it for them at home? I know, I know, it's quicker and easier to just pop it into their lunch box all ready and sealed. And they just love the salty taste.

But I do remember when I went to school that my Mum prepared my lunch, morning tea and snacks at home. She did cheat a little with an Uncle Toby's muesli bar or a Poppa, but these things were really healthy. They weren't filled with so much sugar they weren't overly sweet - my parents ate them as a snack at work too. Mum made my sandwich of a chicken and mayonnaise - and we didn't put an ice block in our lunch box. None of use were poisoned and we all survived eating it - yes, even in the heat of summer.

And yet, I'm surprised to find that things go off so much quicker now than they did when I was younger. I think it's because we were much tougher back in the 1980's - or is it that the food we ate had less additives? I'm not sure.

The thing still remains that we are cheating our children out on good, home-made foods which are high in nutrition and are much better for them. I'm not saying that when I was younger junk food wasn't advertised, nor am I saying it wasn't throughout the schoolyards as much either. 
There was kids at school who ate boxes of jelly crystals and Chupa-chups for morning tea and then packets of chips for lunch and that was it. They were the kids I shared my lunch with - giving them half of my sandwich and some of fruit (an apple or banana was always included in my lunch) and they didn't mind it. Actually, they always asked if I had anything when they were hungry; and a lot of the times, I kept a half a sandwich aside just in case somebody wanted it. 

That was the sad part - there was always somebody I went to school with who wasn't eating properly. Their parents didn't give them lunch money or didn't prepare them a good lunch at home. And it still continues today.

Parents just seem to think that when they have children that other people will feed them at school... but really, it's every aspect in life that parents need to think about in their child's life - not just their home life. 

Feeding their children the right food at home as well as at school - and not just any food will do - is the biggest decision a parent will make. It shapes how their children will turn out as a person. Will they be healthy? Will they eat nothing but junk food? Will they be lean and healthy or fat and eating Pizza Hut and McDonalds? It's entirely up to the you - the parents - on how your child turns out.

Sure I ate Hungry Jacks and takeaway food for a while. But over the past decade, I've looked at what I've been eating and realised that there's nothing like a really good home-cooked meal where I know exactly what's gone into it. 

Yes, I am what I eat. I do have a splurge once in a while, but it's not often. I never eat McDonalds, Hungry Jacks or Kentucky Fried Chicken anymore... it's not worth the huge amounts of salt or sugar they put into the food or the sleepless nights I'm going to have for a week or the mouth ulcers for the next two weeks (yes this happens to me), or the dry skin either. I'd rather eat what I have bought at the green grocers and cook it here at home. It's better to know how to cook my own meals. This is something I've been doing for years now, and I love it. 

Zero Tolerance

I've seen it far too many times on Facebook and other social media sites, and I'm damned well sick of it!

Online bullying, body-shaming, being a complete arsehole to anyone who you think doesn't live up your standard, being a horrible person to somebody you think is less intelligent than you... well guess what?

You're the one who is the less intelligent person here.

If you're out there taking photos of people who have cellulite, stretch marks, wear glasses, aren't perfect, aren't good at maths, can't spell properly, speak perfect English (or whatever language you're speaking), can't count money properly, doesn't eat meat, isn't vegetarian, doesn't know how to draw, doesn't know how to drive a car, doesn't know how to read, write or understand what things are in the everyday world, has a guide dog or assistance dog, is walking down the street alone, tripped over and fell down ... 

well, the list goes on with just about any scenario you lot out there can think of, and I know there's people out there who are more than willing to pick and pick people to pieces.

I went to school with some of them and you know something? It got very dull being around people like that very quickly - and what they dished out every single day of my life became boring, predictable and showed just how intelligent they were deep down inside.

They're weren't.

They were the insecure little children who wanted to be seen by everyone and noticed because there was something going terribly wrong in their lives. They took out their frustrations on everyone one else; and didn't know how to ask for help, didn't know how to turn around and say they needed to talk to somebody - no, they just thought picking on somebody, anybody, was a great way to push their anger and frustrations in another direction.

This just pisses me off.

When this kind of thing reaches out to workplaces, gyms, shopping centres, high schools and other public places, it makes it difficult for people who find those places intimidating to go to in the first place. 

And I'm going to tell you something about myself that only a few people know: I find going out into public places the most horrifying thing to do. I'm always double-guessing myself. Am I taking too long to get back to the car? Do I have enough money, did I look weird when I sneezed? Am I dressed in the right way that won't bother anyone? Am I walking too fast/slow/the right direction? Where do I look when I'm walking along to the next store on the other side of the shopping complex? All of this goes through my head and exhausts me throughout a day - and it causes me to not go out anywhere.

So, I stay home as much as I can - if I can. But if I have to go out, I don't stay out just for the hell of it. I get myself home as soon as I can so I don't have be somewhere to impress anyone... or so I don't feel as though people are staring at me; even if nobody is staring at me - I still feel as though they are.

This is what happens when you've been bullied through primary school, high school, college/TAFE and then in your workplace. And once you're not working anymore - and you're on disability support pension - you still can't please anyone; and people still bully you. I've been told off by people who tell me that I should be 'out working, getting some money', but I'm not allowed to work. And the older I get, the more this shit bothers me. So, it's gotten to a point where I just don't talk to anyone anymore.A couple of years ago, I realised I wasn't happy - and in some ways I'm still not. I'm working on this to make my life better.

But it's time we all took a really good look at ourselves people. 

What we have to do is stop looking at what everyone else is doing that is stupid, wrong, dumb, idiotic and half-brained and start looking at how we think, speak, act and treat people around us. If you're one of those people who snapchat and instagram other people's faults and think you don't have any of your own, well, you've got a long way to go in your development. It's quite clear you're most certainly not happy within yourself if you're picking on other people to make yourself feel so superior to them. 

Let's have a zero tolerance to this bullying online, in the world around us and wherever we go. Let's get back to basics, people, and think about exactly how bullying somebody into thinking they're below us makes them feel, by first thinking how it would make us feel if somebody did that to us. 

Now... the ball is in your court to start making our world better.

Marriage Equality

It's been in the news lately. No, not the problems with North Korea - well, yeah that, but other things closer to home.

In Australia, the Federal Government can't make up its mind about whether to let gay people get married or not.

So, they've dumped the decision onto the rest of us citizens; thinking that this postal voting system is going to work out.

I gotta say: this is the dumbest thing I've ever come across.

Exactly since when does my opinion matter when it comes to the affairs of the love between two people I don't know? And since when does my nation of fellow Australians think it's up to them to say whether gay and lesbians should be 'permitted' to marry? 

Isn't love the same no matter who you love - man or woman?

Making us vote on this kind of thing is a waste of tax-payers time and money; and I don't see the point in making gay and lesbian people feel as though they're on the outer of our society because they don't fit the mold of the ordinary family.

Besides, there's no such thing as an ordinary family anymore; so why should it really matter who marries who? So long you're not related to the person you're marrying - you know, you're not first cousins - that's what matters. 

I don't appreciate being pushed into making decisions by my government about who is allowed to get married and who isn't. Why doesn't the government concentrate on the people who call themselves parents when really they're screwing up their children's lives by being on drugs, being drunks and having mental problems which really stuff up their children? This is what needs to be looked into, not whether two people who love each other dearly, have become engaged for some years now, but can't get married within the country they live in because it's against the law. 

And when they just don't wish to wait any longer? Well, they jump on a plane and fly to a country where they've legalised gay marriage for years - and it's worked out well - and tie the knot there! 

Love is love people... is this such a bad thing? 

I think not! 

A Deceit by Chocolate

For a week where I wasn't expected to do anything or go anywhere, didn't have any doctor's appointments or have anywhere to really go, I was really busy.

Monday was my usual art class. But I felt sick the whole time; and just came home hibernated for the afternoon. I didn't know why I was sick, but I was. My guts were going backflips and I was sweating like you wouldn't believe. I kept thinking I was going to have a seizure - but it never happened. I also didn't want to eat, and couldn't sleep.

Something was up, and it was in my food.

So, I sussed out what I had been eating since last week... and you know? It was the new Lindt Orange chocolate pillows. I read the ingredients, didn't know half the numbers and started Googling. Oh... My... God! You wouldn't believe what those new number meant! 

I found numbers 211 and 401 weren't what I thought they'd be. One of them were to preserve jellies and fruit colourings (which is what was inside the pillows the chocolate - the orange substance) and 401 was something that caused cancer and both of them were Halal Certified! 211 could cause all kinds of problems with nausea and causing your body to not absorb nutrients properly and other bigger problems - like dizziness and confusion. 

Exactly why did they put this shit into this particular chocolate then think it was okay to sell it to the public??? I have Googled around again and again, and still come to the same conclusion about these two additives - they are not good for us; whether they have the E on the beginning of the numbers or not... don't eat them! Here's a site for you go to where you can read all about what these do to you... it's really unsettling.

After I threw out the Lindt Orange pillows, and went back to my ordinary chocolate, I was fine within 48 hours. I started eating better, sleeping better and not feeling so sick in the guts. Now, all I want to do is catch up on my sleep... I've lost about 3 nights' worth. 

Strings Attached

Over the past few weeks, I've been crook; so much so I missed one art class, but I was back at it again last week.

And over the past week, Eckersleys has had an art sale like you wouldn't believe! I've been eying off a gorgeous easel over the past 6 months. As usual, if I really like something, I don't say much about it, just admire it quietly and wait for the price to drop. Well, I've been admiring this one Jasart Bamboo Easel for around 6 months and waiting very patiently for the price to drop - and at the same time I'm coming into some money... so I thought to get a bit of money and buy it.
However, when it came time to pull those two things together, it didn't quite work out the way I thought it would. The money is in my Dad's account, and he said no to me using some of it to buy this lovely easel at 55% off! I mean, it was at the cheapest it's ever going to be!

Anyway, we went to Eckersleys and he looked around at the place and he ended up paying for it. But I still want to pay for it out of my own money; not work it off. This makes me feel like a slave, not like his daughter. I don't know why this has happened, but I don't like being in somebody's debt for things. And when the time comes, I'll be getting the money out to pay for it in full. 

As much as I love scoring new things like this - or second-hand - I really don't like it when people do this to me. I hate being in people's debt. Right now, I feel as though the easel isn't mine... not really. It's on loan from my Dad because he bought it for me and he wants me to do things around his place for him to pay it off. That's adding strings to something, not treating me like family, or acting as though he doesn't trust me. 

It's a little wonder I often feel as though I'm not part of the family; and I feel as though I'm not trusted with anything and I'm left out of a lot of things as well.  It's also a little wonder I have trust issues with people - outside and family as well as within it - when my own Dad acts as though I can't be trusted and has to do this kind of thing to get me to do things for him. All he has to do is ask me to help him out, not blackmail or bribe me. Doing that just keeps me from getting to know him as anyone else but a my Dad. 

And when this happens, the family dynamics disappears very quickly. He loses my respect quickly too. 

Been A While

I'm sorry. It's been a while, and I haven't written anything here. It's not because I haven't got anything to write - or say - I do.

It's because I'm not happy in myself and I don't really want to burden you all with it.

I hate depression. It really does get me down and I wish it would go away; and normally it does. However, this time it's sticking around longer than it usually does. And I know why. 

I'm not happy with where I'm living. I've lived in the same place for almost 15 years and I really don't the space to do what I want to do around the townhouse. Every time I want to do any sewing, I have to move things off the kitchen table, open it up, pull down my sewing machine and do my sewing all in one day. Then after I'm finished, I have to put it all away so I can eat dinner at the same table. 

If I want to paint, I have to do the same thing at the work bench. There's only so much room I have around me before I have to pull out another table, move the chair - and I can't get around the extra table to get to the toilet or outside. Then, when it's time to finish up, I have to pack every last thing away so I don't trip over it later that night.

There's simply no room for me to just leave my gear where it is and go into another room and let it all alone for a day or two. 

Another room... now that's what I need... a 3rd bedroom so I can have a craft room where I can have all my things out and ready to use; where I don't have to put them away all the time, where I can just sit and sew or paint and draw or read art books and magazines. However, to have that 3rd room, I have to move out of the complex.

Herein lays the dilemma. I can't get out of here without a bank loan - which I'm unable to get from any bank; believe me I've tried. Nobody will lend me the money to buy a house off my own bat because I don't have collateral (which I'm still fuzzy on what that is exactly). I don't have any debt, no credit card, and paid off my last car in record time; so why I can't get a loan is beyond me if my credit rating is perfect and I'm unlikely to lose my pension anytime soon. And speaking of which, I'm unable to get a deposit together because the pension doesn't really allow you to save anything up - unlike the normal pay packet - it only just covers what you need to live; and that's it. So, how am I supposed to get a place of my own without relying on renting off somebody else? 

This means I'm stuck here until further notice... I hate this but it's true. I want to move, but can't - not won't - and am hating my position in life right now. 

So, this is why I haven't written for a while. This is heavy shit that's been on my mind for a long time; and is bubbling to the surface. My brother has been talking to me about it and knows I want to move as well. So he's more than glad to help me out with this too. I'm so happy he's on my side... but this will take time. Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here. 

The War On Waste - Part 2

Tuesday night was the second episode of this 3-part series on how wasteful we are as a nation.

However, the greatest thing about this show on the ABC is that they're not sugar-coating anything. The journalist has been telling us exactly what's been going on, who's avoiding him, which emails are saying what and who's giving him mixed messages in those emails too. 

We are being told that we are a wasteful, throwaway society, unable to fix things, refusing to accept old things or second-hand things. And yet, when I had to change my living room around - and update it to what I wanted it to be - I found that getting somebody (anybody!) interested in my 30 year old sofa-bed was impossible. 

Not a single charity wanted it. Life Line complained about the 20cm tear in the arm. Vinnies did the same (and yet they never saw it, they just said no over the phone). And I refuse to go anywhere near the Salvos because they sent out a guy who had just gotten out of prison to pick my last donation - and he left me with half my furniture and was rude as hell to me.

So, today, Dad and I took the sofa-bed to the Browns Plains 'Smart' Tip to see if the store over there would take it off my hands.

But no... they heard about the tiny tear in the arm and they said it would go to landfill.

Now, I'm watching that show 'War On Waste' and we are being accused of being wasteful. And this is one thing I'm not. I have second-hand furniture, second-hand clothing, second-hand books, second-hand vinyls and second-hand kitchenware... and yet, a dump store wouldn't take my second-hand sofa-bed. 

Before you all ask me - no, there's nothing wrong with the bed. It's fine. It's been used all of 3 times in the 15 years it's been with me; and that tiny tear in the arm? Well, that's been that size since I bought it at Springwood when I first moved into my place. Before that, the people we bought it off - through 'The Trading Post' - had had it for another 10 or 15 years before me. 

Why is it that after I've done all the right things to get rid of my sofa-bed, it ends up in the very place I didn't want to end up? 

I tried selling it on Gumtree - but nobody wanted it.

I tried giving it away through friends and family - but nobody wanted it.

I tried giving it away on Facebook sites - but nobody wanted it there either. And the person who did, unfortunately had unexpected health issues and couldn't pick it up.

I tried donating it - and none of the 3 big charities wanted it because of the 20cm tear!

I took it to the Browns Plains 'Smart' Tip - and they said no because of the 20cm tear! And told me to dump it!

This is getting beyond a joke! How long will it take until we realise that a tiny tear in the arm of a lounge or a chair won't destroy the ego of the next person who gets it.

It didn't destroy my ego when I bought the lounge. I needed a lounge - so I bought it with the tear. So whoopie, it had a tear! that tear didn't get any bigger over the past 15 years... this is why I got a cover for it, so it wouldn't. 

So, before you go on Gumtree or any of the charities (who are really fussy as all shit about what you're going to donate - honestly they are), just take all your furniture to the dump and throw it away. It's just not worth it, people. I know that sounds depressing - and it is - but really, if I couldn't sell a 30 year old sofa-bed with a tiny tear in the arm, how are we going to get rid of any of the clutter in our houses without adding to landfill?