For the last 8+ months, I’ve really struggled with feeling ‘closed in’ by stuff. I have tried organising myself, and tidying up, but even after my efforts, the house still looks untidy and like everything isn’t in its right place.

I mean, it could be because we have quite a bit of ‘stuff’ (despite my efforts to reduce the amount of stuff) and only a small house with very little built-in storage – which then requires the need to buy free-standing storage, which in turn takes up floor space, eventuating in rooms looking even more ‘busy’ or cluttered than they did before.

It’s literally driving me crazy – I come home and I feel instantly depressed by the amount of crap surrounding me.

I’ve been through all my clothes about 5 times in the last 6 or so months to throw out what I don’t need, but I’m seriously down to just the stuff I wear all the time now. We only have a small wardrobe (about 3 foot wide, and we share that) and a tallboy chest of drawers (two drawers each). That’s it for clothes storage.

I’m in the process of clearing out our spare room, which is again full of crap, but there’s stuff in there I just can’t bring myself to throw out, even though I know I haven’t even touched it, let alone used it, for the last 12 months. Stuff that has sentimental value, or “I will use it one day” value. So that’s all sitting on the spare room bed at the moment, waiting for me to look at it again.

My next huge issue is our study/office. We have literally 5 book shelves in here, only two of them contain any books. One houses a printer (two shelved bookcase), the other holds my computer games and a couple of baskets of more stuff I can’t bring myself to throw out (four shelve, narrow bookcase), and the other one (the largest) holds the majority of our DVDs. Hubby has been an angel in going through all the DVDs and cleaning out all the ‘illegitimate’ ones (all the copies) and putting them in a CD wallet, but there’s still a mass of them and even though they’re stacked neatly, it still looks messy. I’ve been looking for alternative accommodation for them, namely a chest of drawers or something that will house all of them out of sight.

This is all before I even mention the kitchen, dining room and lounge room.

I’m really ripping my hair out here. It’s driving me completely mental, depressed and in tears nearly every day over this shit. Tomorrow I’m going to go put ‘No Junk Mail’ stickers on the mailbox, so we can at least limit that coming into the house, but what about the rest?

Johnny Depp is a wise man…

A lot of things in my life appear this way – that they’ve been around for such a short time yet at the same time feel like they’ve been around my whole life. Like Michael, owning our home, etc. It all feels like it happened yesterday. At the start of this month, it’s been two years since I started my job. Two years. I can’t get over it, it’s unreal. In August, it’ll be three years since we moved back to Tassie, and two years since we got married in November.

I heard a theory about time, which made a lot of sense to me. I don’t know who originally said it, but it was essentially that 1 year of a 10 year old’s life is 1/10th of their lifetime, whereas 1 year of a 50 year old’s life is 1/50th of their lifetime. This is why the years seem to get quicker as we get older, because every year is a smaller fraction of our current existence. I thought it was a pretty interesting concept.

Onto other things, and we (being me and a few girls from the Tas Pagan Alliance) had a full moon ritual the other night at the beach. It was cold, but an amazing experience. This was my first (in over 10 years of identifying as Pagan and around 8 of practicing) group ritual, and it was so nice to have the company, as well as the combined energies of four fabulous women whom I adore. They’re all so strong yet fragile in their own ways, and every time I meet up with them I feel so blessed because I find out just a little more about their lives, and we all open up that little bit more.

Preparation for the Australian Wiccan Conference in September (OMG!) is all under way and I’m so excited – this will be my first Conference so I’m really looking forward to it. It seems like it’s going to be an awesome time.

All this, combined with upcoming pub moots and women’s circles = a very spiritual, ‘coming into my own’ year. I’m feeling very into my Craft at the moment, even if a lot of the time it’s just thinking about what I’d like to be doing

Anyway, I’m blabbing, I’m really only posting to get another blog post in this month, otherwise it’d never happen.

I’ve held off writing this post for sometime (almost a month) because I didn’t want to cause any tension. But, I figured it’s my blog, my opinions and I’ll say what I like.

I’ll preface this, though, by saying I have absolutely no issue with people’s religious and/or spiritual beliefs. I figure you should be able to do/believe/think what you want, as long as you’re not hurting anyone (including yourself). This goes for atheists/agnostics too. So please don’t take this personally if you’re a religious person – unless you’re someone who is doing this sort of thing on a daily basis. What’s “this”, you may ask? Here goes…

So my Nana’s funeral was almost a month ago, on the 16th May. I obviously attended, along with my family. The funeral was held at an Anglican church and, my Nana and her immediate family being Anglican, this made sense. I had no issue being in the church, as it was a reflection of my Nana and her wishes. Fine.

However, my Uncle, who is a minister and travels the world ‘spreading the gospel’, got up and said a few words about Nana and all that, etc. But then proceeded into a full-on preach session to the whole congregation, who were there to mourn the loss and celebrate the life of my Nana, not to be preached at. He went on about how he had Jesus and God in his head but not in his heart, until he went to to the Vietnam war and found Jesus there, and went on about if we don’t have Jesus in our hearts, then we should definitely turn to Him and embrace Him. Furthermore, he offered little cards full of information on how to accept Jesus into your life following the funeral.

W. T. F.

Firstly, I don’t like being preached to. This behaviour infuriates me. Fair enough, believe what you want to believe, but don’t shove your beliefs down my throat. I like to think I have a pretty solid foundation of my own ethical, moral and religious beliefs, and I don’t need someone else telling me how to think.

Secondly, this was not the time to be preaching to people – this was my Nana’s (his MOTHER’S) funeral, not a Sunday church congregation. I found it highly disrespectful to be using the lectern at a funeral as a podium for preaching the gospel, even if my Nana was a religious person.

Not only this, but the priest actually endorsed my uncle’s tangent and, when he’d finished his ramble, said, “Yes, a lesson for all – if you don’t have Jesus in your heart, do it!”.

And here is where my major problem stands. Whenever someone tries to pull this shit on me, I always walk away thinking, “But why? Why should I?”. There’s never any reason given as to why I should accept Jesus into my life. Only that I should do it, and if I don’t I’m a “bad” person. I never say anything directly because, as I’ve said above, I have nothing against people’s religious beliefs – believe what you want to. But seriously, if someone hands you a pill and says, “Take this”, you don’t just do it, you ask, “Why?”. You need to have reasons for it, even if it’s something that only makes sense to you personally.

/end rant.

Not only have these major events occurred, but my sister got major food poisoning on the day she was supposed to visit for my brother’s birthday, and my cousin was almost in a major car accident – if it hadn’t been for her swerving at the right moment, she probably would have been killed or at least severely injured.

I just need some “time out” from life right now – it’s all becoming so overwhelming – and while I know it’s difficult to not dwell on the rotten things that happen in life, sometimes you need to pay some attention to the shit that happens around you, because it makes appreciating those wonderful things that little bit easier. You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone, that kind of thing.

I thank the Gods for my family, my friends, and in some cases complete strangers who supported us though the events of the last couple of weeks. The energy field of love and support is so strong that I can literally feel it. Thank you.

Late night rambles, but you know – that’s what this site is for.

Work has been kicking my ass lately. I’m getting sick of the fact that my boss doesn’t give two rat’s testicles about his employees. For example, when I left on Friday (because, you know, my GRANDMOTHER DIED), the first thing he asked our payroll lady was a) how long was I going to be away for, and b) what are my leave entitlements in relation to my grandmother passing away. What a fuckwit! How fucking insensitive can you be?!

Then my Dad has a heart attack on Sunday (which I’ll give you an update on in a sec, because that’s a post in it’s own right), I called on Monday (day of the funeral) to say that Dad has had a “massive” (the doctor’s words, not mine) heart attack and I’m not sure of how he’s going right now, and whether I’d be in on Tuesday. He said, “That’s fine, see you tomorrow” and hung up. FUCKWIT.

So anyway, I’m getting myself wound up. Dad went into hospital, as per last post, on Sunday 15th May. He had a stent put in his heart and was in the Intensive Care Unit for a couple of days, before they moved him to a regular ward since he no longer needed the ICU treatment. He was running a bit of a fever on the Wednesday, and obviously this means his body is fighting infection somewhere, so they put him on a drip with some antibiotics.
Well, of course his body is reacting differently at the moment, and he had a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotics, going into anaphylactic shock. He was on the phone to my Mum at the time and said, “Gosh, I don’t feel so good at the moment” – he was shaking all over and couldn’t control it. Mum told him to buzz the nurse, which he did three times before yelling out for help (all the while my Mum’s on the phone listening to all of this – can you imagine how you’d feel? I’d be sick..). They gave him a shot of adrenaline and then a steroid shot to balance everything out. He was fine after that but his muscles were all weak and he felt like he’d run a marathon.

He came home on Friday 20th, and it was so good to have him home. I said the whole time that he’d probably heal better being at home, getting rest, being in his own clothes (rather than the hospital gowns!) and in familiar surrounds. He’s still having a hard time getting around without being completely exhausted – just a walk from the lounge to the kitchen is an effort – but he’s on the road to recovery.

Thanks for all your support, guys – it means a lot to receive messages from around the world with notes of support and well-wishes, sometimes from people you don’t even know and definitely from people who didn’t/don’t know my Nana or my father. The online community, with its few exceptions (there are always a few exceptions!) is a wonderful thing to be a part of.

This afternoon, my dad had a heart attack.

Thankfully, it wasn’t fatal, but he had to go to the local ER, and then to the General Hospital about an hour away. They did an angiogram and then had to put a stent in his heart to stop the clotting. He went off to hospital around 3:30, and we only just got home from the hospital about 40 minutes ago (11:40pm).

He’s doing well, just a bit light-headed and he is on monitors and everything at the Hospital. Otherwise in good spirits – he’s coherent and was joking about with the nurses. He’ll be there for the next few days, meaning he’ll miss my Nana’s funeral tomorrow afternoon.

Let’s hope things don’t happen in threes in this instance.

While most of the time I wear t-shirts and jeans, I do like to get dressed up once in a while. And while I think I look really awesome (without being egotistical, I think I look pretty), as soon as I leave the house I feel self-conscious, awkward, fat and, sometimes, miserable. It’s often tempting to turn my ass around and go change.

Case in point: my birthday outfit. I bought a really cute dress with an empire waist, white on top, thick black belt and black bottom. It came to just above my knees and when I tried it on I loved it. It suits my body shape, and with the right underwear smoothes out my lumps and bumps.

As soon as I got to the restaurant for dinner, I feel so self-conscious I just wanted to crawl inside myself and die. And I HATE feeling like that when I, honestly, look really nice. Feeling awkward is my biggest deal, I think – I don’t normally wear heels or dresses/skirts, so when I do I don’t feel ‘right’. But I enjoy wearing them and feeling feminine!

Anyone else had this same dilemma? And what would you call your personal style?

To answer my own question, I would call mine ‘neat casual’ – I’m never grotty (unless I’m just bumming around the house, of course), I will never leave the house in trackpants unless its just to go to my parents’ house or something – but I don’t really ever get dressed up, as such.

Told myself I wouldn’t worry so much about money this year – I’m worrying about it more than ever.

Today’s item is to take a photo of myself and post a description of how my day was.

My day started at about 5:00am when the dog woke up, but she was fine once I fed her and let her out for a pee. I’m really tired today as we were out late at a friend’s house for dinner, so I slept in till about 7:30 before getting up, having some breakfast and getting ready to go out.
I went and had a massage at 9:00am, to get rid of some tension and pain in my neck & shoulders, which was really relaxing – something I really needed. I went to the supermarket after that to grab a few things, then to get some breakfast. Took that home, ate with Michael and I’ve pretty much been sitting at my computer the rest of the day.
Michael is going out tonight with Dominic (husband of one of my work colleagues) so I’m heading up to their house, taking some dinner with me as she’s home with a nearly 4-week old baby, and we’re going to sit and watch Meet the Little Fockers.
I guess after that I’ll be coming home and going to bed!

Not a really eventful day, actually