The Cooler Days of Winter

They're here at last! Yes I do love the cold when it comes to my country; and love it completely in every way. It's the food, the clothes and the comfiness of my bed when the temperatures drop - I love the Winter here in Brisbane in such a way I'd love to follow this season around the world; in much the same way people follow the perpetual Summer with their surfboards.

Winter is a great time of the year for as I'm really not built to survive the Summer months here; not in the way most people are. I hate the disgusting heat and the way it makes me feel sick and light-headed... and how I just can't get comfortable with anything I wear or want to eat. There's so much variety, but I never want to eat anything because I'll sweat too much afterwards.

In Winter, I get to wear my most colourful and lovely clothes. I get to cook my most wonderful, hot & stodgy food. And in Winter, I get to jump into the gardening and pull apart the yard and put it back together again when it's sleeping. It's a great way to get in and restructure it into something I want it to be without killing it off completely. 

This Winter, I'm also writing a new book, sorting through a lot of things in my house and organising myself in a big way. 

I'm still mourning over my friend - and will probably still be until her service is publicised online; where I'll feel the pain again a second time around. It'll be okay, as pain is good thing and I'll be planting a rose bush for my friend in her honour; to keep her memory alive. 

Yes, this month hasn't been good to me - unlike the happier months in my calendar of life. I hope the coming months are so much better for me. Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.

To Live Life

It's been almost a week since I found out my dear friend, Hannah Northedge committed suicide in the UK. I'm still feeling the greatest of loss from this; as I've known her since we were 10 years old - as I can imagine her family is still reeling from the shock of this as well. 

However, I've been to my therapist and he's pulled a lot of things into perspective for me. He told me - as a GP - that she could have had any type of health problem from health complications from mould (which was in her last place of residence at Gypsy Hill) to Ovarian Cancer (which shows its gruesome face in its last stages of the disease; causing all kinds of pains, torment and weight loss in the patient). But nobody will know anything for another year; mainly because the living is more important than the tests of the dead... that's just how life goes I'm afraid.

Anyway, I've been writing on my Facebook page, letting my friends know what I'm doing more so they know I'm getting there - even though I'm having a few drawbacks here and there - and life most certainly does go on after a loved one's death; no matter how untimely it is. 

But I am going to do something more.

Hannah was only 43 years old - a year younger than me; and I got the opportunity to show her what I'd been working on at art school, how my back yard looked and told her that my medical condition was completely stablised and she got to see my car on the 24th, April - the day to the year I got my car. She was so happy I had my life so sorted... she also loved my 70's house, and told me she loved me. That was the last thing she told me two days later.

But what I'm going to do with my life - the life I have without my sweet, wonderful friend in it to enjoy it with me - is going to be so much more than it was before.

Life is to be lived I find and it's not the big things or the little things which mean the most to us as we walk our journey which is our life. It really doesn't matter how we get there, it's who we meet along the way, how we enjoy the scenery, what we do and how much we love to do what we do during that wandering journey of life. And by the time we're at the end of it - no matter how old or young it turns out to be - I believe it's a matter of what we've done with our lives, not what years we've wasted or the regrets we've made. 

I haven't had the most perfect life - and goodness knows, I've had to fight tooth and nail to get where I am now. But I'm getting out there and working my life to what I want it to be. 

There's always somebody who is going to be saying that life is a chore, or it's difficult or that it's not what you think and it's hard. Well, that's you, not me. Sure I work my butt on writing books and stories. I also have my art class where I've worked my butt off learning how to paint with oil paints and learning to work with other mediums as well. 
Life is what you make it and I see people who make their own lives so difficult due to the choices they've made. However, it can be so much more easier if they take a good look at what they're doing and just change one or two things. 

It's okay to make a mistake... but after you've made that mistake once, forgive yourself. You're Human, it's normal. But making it more than twice? Well, you're making a choice to go and do that again. And this is what life is like: making a mistake or two then remembering the life lesson you've learned. It's not hard, it's not easy, it's not anything except what you make it out to be. 

As for me, I'm going to live life better. Hannah Northedge isn't going to be here to be an old fud with me when I get older... to travel the world with me and enjoy our time on the planet. But I'll take you with me, Hannah, you'll be with me everywhere I go, in my heart and spirit. I'll live for you and with you here. I'll do the things you never got around to doing (and believe me you got to do things and meet more people than I have so far - so I have some catching up to do). This is my promise to you... to live life, not drown in my grief. 

I promise.

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. 

Weekend Work

It may seem as though I'm not posting much here, but I've been busy offline. There's a lot going on in my life that I haven't written down here - but I have done in my offline journal. 

And I have to apologise for that. You see, some of the things are a little too personal to put up here for the public to see.

But over the past week, I've been getting as much housework done as possible; and it's good to get in and actually see it done. All the laundry is finally finished up - and tomorrow I'll be putting all the laundry away in its proper place, putting away any art/craft boxes I don't need in the wardrobes and washing the floors and vacuuming everywhere.

Yep, it's going to be a busy day - I might even get in and wash the car; I'm not sure yet.

The backyard is looking pretty good after being mowed twice this week and all the weeds pulled out as much as possible - and that was after I did some serious work on it a few weeks ago.

I have been in planning mode for this one-day visit to a hospital for the past two weeks. In my last shopping trip, I made sure I had enough bread and frozen goods to see me through not only last week, but this week as well. I also made sure I had plenty of other dry goods in the pantry to see me through the next couple of weeks... and so when I have to go shopping next week with Mum, I'm not pushing myself too hard; and I'm not stressed out. 

This is something I try to do with big things like this... plan ahead - and I'm really good at planning for things like this too, I've found.

So far, I've gotten all my bills paid, my rego of my car paid, the insurance paid and next week sometime, I'll be paying my RACQ as well... yep, it'll all be good! Now, I hope my phone bill gets paid properly; and I'll be able to happily say that my planning for the first half of this year has fallen into line. If not, well, that's something I'll have to work on.

Anyway, my work this weekend isn't finished; and I'm not worried about how much work is left - I'm only worried about how to get it done. Time isn't a factor when you've got your mind on a deadline - and my deadline is Sunday night; because, well, Monday night is my night for 'Supernatural'... I'm not letting that slip by. Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember I'm always here.

Been Busy

It's been a while since my last post, and it's because I've been busily working away on paintings and decluttering - well, okay, not so much decluttering but collecting from charity stores - and hanging out with my friend Tutasi. She's heading home to the USA earlier than expected; so I'm hanging out with her more over the next few days as I don't know when I'll see her again.

Anyway, today, I got in and did three loads of laundry and it's all outside on the line. The garden has been mowed, weeded and cleaned up over the past week or so. And I have to get either new batteries for the lights out in the garden - or new lights. I'll see if I can get new batteries first and if I can't, new lights it is!

I'm looking at cleaning out the kitchen and living room again and donating what I don't need anymore - yep it's time for another major declutter and donation before I buy anything else. But I've been buying some clothes for Winter and getting in and buying some bangles. 

Otherwise, I'm onto my 3 painting of Brunswick Heads at the Logan Artists Association and my 2nd one for this year. The first one this year will be going to the Member's Exhibition next week and I'll be hoping to sell it - now that'd be great! I can't wait if I do. 
I'm also knitting away at night for myself. I'm making my own throw for my bed. It's taking shape really well and I can't wait to pull it together in the next year or so. 

Now Autumn has been showing itself more, I'm looking at what I enjoy wearing more and the nights are cooler - thank goodness. The pedestal fan has been put away and I'm sleeping better; Summer really isn't a great season for people like me, people who can't handle the heat. But as the year moves on, I'll be working on bettering the way my place looks, the way the garden looks and the way everything fits in my place. This is going to be a really creative year for me in every aspect of my life. Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here. 

Purple Day

Today is Purple Day - the day to bring to the fore and into the public eye the attention of Epilepsy. This is an uncomfortable and very confronting medical condition that nobody wants to talk about or think about because it's not pretty, it's not a behind-closed-doors kinda thing.

No, Epilepsy is a brain condition which affects not only the person who is suffering from it, but their family and friends. This brain condition - and it's also a disease - is something I've been born with and have recently found out that it's genetic in my body. 

Man, did I feel like I was cursed!

But the doctors told me that it would take time to get myself well - time and patience. I had all the time in the world; but patience? Well, I wanted to do so much!

We have been to Melbourne and back, where I overdosed by accident. I've been in and out of so many hospitals and lost track of how many medications I've been on... and now so many years later, I'm eating a healthy vegetarian diet, don't drink alcohol, don't smoke (anything) and yet, still find it difficult to get to sleep at night. 


I have accomplished a few things I've always wanted. I'm living on my own now, and own a car as well. I've learned to cook, take care of myself and my home and learned to keep plants alive too. And these are things which are wonderful to accomplish in life - and they may be small to some people, but for me, they're majorly huge.

But today, I want to step forward and tell people about my condition/disease as it's not all what you see in the movies. It's nerve-racking, it's tiring and feeling like you're not in complete control of your life or anything you do - ever. 
It's not able to sleep in until 10am, all because you have to be up by 7am to eat with your medication or it'll burn a whopping big hole in your stomach and it hurts like hell.
It's having to pick and choose which nights you can have late on the weeknights just in case you stupid neighbours decide at the last second to have a 24-hour party and keep everyone awake not only on Friday night but also on Saturday night as well - expecting you and everyone else to sleep when they do.
It's looking at everything set out at a party and knowing you can't touch any of the lollies just in case it all collides with your medications - and opting for water instead of the crazy-coloured soft-drinks, while people give you a weird look and you have to explain you can't drink 'that stuff because it's full of crap ingredients I can't have.'
It's not only these things, it's the physical things too - the after-seizure problems of absolutely no energy, the scars you have on your body, the cuts, bruises and sore joints and muscles which take an age to heal. It's the stay in hospital where you can't sleep because your brain is still zapping away and you're waking up before anyone wakes you up to check your blood pressure. And it's the brain fogginess of wondering how long it'll be before you'll back to normal again - only to have this electrical short circuit screw you over again.


Then, there's the doctor's appointments, the blood tests you have all your life - more than most people do - just to keep your levels in check. Some of the medications I take can't be checked, so the doctors have to get my liver and kidneys checked to make sure one of the medications isn't shutting them down without my knowledge. This is the creepy part of being on medications for the brain: it affects everything else in your body.
The seizures I used to take in my past will come back and bite me in the arse because in a few years, I'll have to get my heart looked at due to my heart muscle and aorta being at risk of being weakened as I age. My bones are likely to weaken faster too; so I'm on Calcium pills at night - have been since my mid-30's - to keep them strong for when I'm older and my body ages.

And that's not all.

Every year, I have to get my eyes tested for my driver's licence and have a medical certificate from my doctors to say that I'm cruising along just fine... this means more blood tests to say that everything I'm taking is stable and a-okay. Only then will the government renew my licence to drive a car. If anything is not reviewed every year, I'm not allowed to drive anywhere. 

So, please do help me bring to the forefront of the news and people's minds today this majorly overlooked medical condition. 

It's only for one day a year I ask you to talk about this subject... so please wear purple today. Talk about Epilepsy and you'll be surprised who you know who has it. For one thing: you know I have it. 

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. 

Family Ties

Yesterday, I was out celebrating with my Oma - my Dutch Grandmother (Aunty Helen's Mother In Law) with afternoon tea with the family at her retirement/nursing home. She had turned 99 years young on Thursday; and has only just been placed in one of these homes recently. 

We all got dressed up and sat around a large table with her at the head. She looked lovely in her purple top. 

But it made me wonder, as I was shown around the place, about the other people in there - about how things were for them when they were younger. Where they daredevils in their youth? What were their families like? Did they work or were they home-bodies, staying at home to care for the kids. Had they been to war or didn't they pass the physical? 

I knew deep down inside, they were all young once and even though these places really spook me, I know that if/when I end up in one of these places, I'm going to have somebody looking at me while I'm there and probably feeling the same way.

I also wondered if any of these people's families visited them; so see how they were. Did any one of their family members bring them flowers? Did they bring anything for them to do or come to take them out to lunch or chat with them? Or did their families put them there and never came to see them; thinking they were too much of a burden (as some families do unfortunately). 

The place Oma's in has a lovely lot of things around the back. There's a phone booth, a bus stop and a cafe where they can all spend time if they wish. There's a resident dog called Bailey (and he is a real sweetheart too) and a cat who doesn't like to be patted, but I think that's just a personality clash really. It's not a huge place, and so each person is looked after well; and it's nice and quiet - even though the main road isn't far away. 

I know Oma is visited often by family and she's much-loved by us all. And seeing how long she's been with us, I'm sure she'll be around for some time yet. So, what do you think of nursing homes? I know there's good ones and bad ones around. But I'm not a big fan of them really. I would hate it to have my life whittled down to a corner of a room - it's just not me. But I guess as I get older, my thoughts on this will change. Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.