Impromptu Photography Shoot - the Australian War Memorial

I have never been a huge fan of the War Memorial.  I don't like the insight into what war is, the reminder of how many lives have been taken in the name of...well, whatever the purpose of war is.  Freedom to exist in the form you choose to exist in I suppose.  But sometimes I find myself there and I'm always overwhelmed with the mix of emotions.  It is both beautiful and terrible, one of our most sacred sites.

I've never photographed there before and I didn't have my camera with me this time either because I was there on a mission with one of my good friends, Miss Kim, who was looking for information about a relative of hers, George Hamon.  But I was compelled to take some photos outside with my camera phone.

We found George's name on the honour roll because he was killed in action.

Lest We Forget

Charlotte's room renovation - Part 2

So what prompted the moment of actual action on the room front?  Well half of our little family headed to Coffs Harbour for a week's holiday.

Given Rowan gets migraines from nail polish and baby Evan is only a few months old, I thought having them out of the house while I painted was probably a good idea.  It also happened to line up on a week when the kids were with their Dad.  The timing couldn't have been more perfect.

My Dad tells me that when you have big plans the Universe will send something to test your commitment to them.  This time the Universe sent the plague.  Since I wasn't going to get another opportunity like this for a good long while, plans had to go ahead.  A one-day job turned into three and suddenly I was heading up the ladder in between head spins and chewing pseudoephidrine the way some people knock back Skittles.  I kind of felt like if the Universe was testing me I should have passed after the first day and the sickness would give way but no such luck.

First up I cleaned out all the furniture and went through all her stuff.  I only took one photo to record the horror of this particular process.  Behold, under Madam's bed...

Bleugh.  Way, way, way past the time when this should have been done.  Next up was prep lock for the ceiling.  Here's what it looked like after two coats of paint;

Two coats of ceiling paint went over the top of that.  You can still see some of the worst bits very faintly if you know where to look but otherwise it looks like a perfectly normal ceiling.

Next came patching the walls and cutting in around the edges with the paint.  

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The colour, in case you're wondering, is Taubman's purplicious.  I was worried it might be too dark but the room has enough windows to make it light enough to pull it off.  Here's the end result;

So I mentioned in Part 1 of the room renovation blog that the carpet had some issues.  I hadn't been planning to do anything about it but when the room was painted it quickly became obvious that I couldn't put everything back on top of the feral carpet, I just couldn't.  So I called a carpet cleaning guy who came and took one look...

...and was immediately like, "Lady, no, I am not cleaning that."  First of all he wasn't sure the cleaning process would do much about the worst of the coloured stuff.  Second, he was pretty sure that ominous large waxy stain we've been hiding under a bed for five years would "melt and spread" and finally, because the carpet is wool he said the amount of water needed to clean it would make the whole lot turn brown and smell bad.  "I don't know what your finances are like," he shrugged, "But I think we'll both sleep better tonight if we agree I'm not going to clean this carpet and you're going to find a few extra dollars to buy a new one instead."

This takes place at four o'clock on a Thursday afternoon.  I have an hour to try and find someone who can sell me carpet and lay it the next day because Kat and Rowan are due back Saturday and I'm guessing they'd rather all their bedrooms weren't filled up with Charlotte's furniture and belongings.  Long story short I managed it. J & M flooring solutions in Weston agreed to supply and fit 100% pure wool Berber carpet the very next morning for $300 - roughly double what cleaning it would have cost.  Oh.  My.  God.   It's beautiful.

So this takes place on Friday morning and I'm still completely trashed with the plague.

Thursday nights I always have the kids and so they've seen the new room and were present while the carpet was laid.

It's also school holidays.  As soon as the carpet was down I planned to take them over to their grandparents' house for the day so I could die a quiet death in bed but Charlotte was desperate for her room to be finished.  Please Mama, please, please can we finish it?  I'll even help you with the furniture...

How do you say no to that?  You can't unless you're dead.  True to their word they helped.  Little man carting books back to the bookshelf and Madam powering up her little arms for some quality furniture moving.  So here you go.  Some shots of her new room with all the revamped furniture back in place;

There are a few more loose ends to go.  The money for her blinds went on the new carpet instead so, for now, we're stuck with the crappy aluminium ones.  I also need to make her a name plate for her door and a valance to hide the base of her bed (a job for this weekend).  But I did manage to buy her some new manchester on sale and she is the happiest little girl, spending all her time in there and cleaning it before bed every night.  

A run down of the renovation costs for those interested;

Premixed plaster repair - $15
1L Zinsser 1 * 2 * 3 prep lock - $25
4L British Paints Ceiling White - $31
Taubman's low sheen Endure in Purplicious - $70
Taubman's semi gloss in Soft Velvet - $80
Berber carpet supplied and installed - $300
Coffee table from tip shop - $5
Bedside table from tip shop - $10

Brass handles for bedside table $12
Quilt cover set - $14 from Kmart
King Single fitted sheet - $4.20 from Best and Less

All up, just under $600.  Stay tuned for the finishing touches when I get there.

Charlotte's room renovation - Part 1

This is one of the most recent photos I have of my oldest baby.

She's growing up.  There have been changes.  Physical and behavioral changes but she's been shifting for a while now from being a kid to being more of a teenager.  Which is hard to take when you consider she's only eight.  And still my baby.

But there it is.  These days she asks me for spicy laksa instead of McDonalds, she wants girl's nights to watch bad eighties movies and paint her toe nails with me, she has definitive opinions on fashion and she has been asking me for a long time to please, please, please fix up her room because it's too babyish.  And she has a point.  I did nothing to her room when we moved in.  It was painted pink and green (not as terrible as it sounds, I swear) and the wardrobe didn't have doors but it was passable.  The carpet was not spectacular - in particular there was one enormous waxy stain that we didn't even want to think about, but we simply popped her bed over the top.  Face crayons, oil pastels and a variety of other contaminants have since added to that particular situation.  At some point her toddler brother made it onto the top bunk with her set of alphabet scrapbooking stamps and this happened;

When you're three a ceiling is mostly just the biggest canvas you've ever had the good fortune to lay your stamps on.  So yes, the time had come for a change.  Let me walk you through some of the "before" issues.  First up, here's behind her bedroom door.  You can see the green paint and you can also see that when they put the wardrobe in they didn't bother to fix up the plaster and we still have bare metal mesh happening.  They didn't even have a frame for doors around the wardrobe cavity so that raw pine there is something I put in myself.  Embarrassingly that was roughly two years ago.

This is the other side of the wardrobe cavity.  Raw pine frame again and now you see the pink.  The butterflies are the only decoration I've added myself.  And spend a moment contemplating the industrial feel of those aluminium blinds.  Mmmm, institutional and broken.

The draws there are a project from a long time ago, shown on my other blog.  You can sort of see the corner of the TV table in this photo and I wish I'd got a better photo because it was in a terrible state.  But it was also scheduled for a similar revamp to the draws.  This photo also gives you an idea of just how untidy the whole place was.  No pride, no respect and honestly, who can blame her?

 Her bedroom corner.  More revamped tip shop furniture as a bedside table and more of the lovely green.

So there you have it, the blank canvas as it were.  Definitely time for a big change.  Stay tuned for part two, the revamp.

Back in the hot seat

It's been a while since I wrote anything.  Writing is something I love.  It's cathartic, it's motivational and energising...but it's also something that takes effort and frankly my efforts have been elsewhere of late.  It took a really long time to get my feet under me.  There are still days when I feel overwhelmed.  But I miss blogging.  I miss writing about my life.  I miss the dialogue that starts when you bare yourself for the world to see.  I feel like I'm ready for that kind of exposure again...and the sometimes negative comments that come with it.  It's been a pretty epic couple of months and this week it culminated with me, knocked over from the flu, still putting some pretty big runs on the board.

Consent orders are through, our financial settlement is finalised.  This week I negotiated a new mortgage, in my name alone, with the bank.  All those zeros next to my name.  It's daunting.  I really must get around to putting a "donate here" link on this blog in case anyone ever feels compelled to throw some dollars my way.  Emotional stripping - nowhere near as lucrative as the real deal.

I finished renovating my daughter's room (mostly.  More on that later).  I finished organising my room.  I made a catch-up book for my ex brother-in-law.  I spent most of yesterday asleep because I overdid it and knocked myself out.  Tonight the big kid has a friend coming for a sleepover.  I have sewing to do.  It's all happening.  I'm up to day 28 of my second shot at the 100 Happy Days campaign.  This time I'm determined to finish it.

I don't want to promise anything I can't deliver but I am hoping this blog becomes active again and that I can find the time to post regularly.  Let the insanity commence!

Day Nine - My Dad

THIS GUY.  After we went to Europe together and the state of my life and my mind became apparent he's taken more of an interest than ever before.  He feels like he dropped the ball - as though my misery and the failure of my marriage are something that he could have prevented.  I know he worries about me and I hate it.  74, living on a farm and managing on a pension, he constantly asks me if I need financial help and when I say no he peppers me with discount fuel vouchers, home grown produce and presents.  It makes my heart ache.  Today he brings me marigolds for my daughter's garden, peaches from his orchard and the ever-present fuel vouchers.  He grins at me over lunch, three teeth left on the bottom.  "Get yourself a chest freezer.  We've got a sheep with your name on it."  Organic grass fed lamb coming my way.  And then he shyly asks me if he can have prints of the photos I took in Europe.  Sure Dad, any enlargements?  Only you and me on the boat in Brugge.  The one where you look like yourself for the first time in years.  And maybe one of me with the brothers.  You got it Dad.

Our trip to Europe was an eye-opener for my Dad.  I'd obviously been covering things well because he knew I was unhappy and that there were issues in my marriage but he had no idea.  Charles lost control about a week into my trip away and there was no way for me to hide.  Dad saw the way I couldn't stop crying, he read the emails full of vitriol.  Rebow, he said firmly, this is abuse and you cannot allow this to continue.  I will not allow it to continue. I nodded, agreed not to speak to Charles anymore while we were away and started putting myself back together,  A week before we were due to come home Dad started to cry over his breakfast because he said he'd forgotten what I'm really like.  He hadn't seen me so happy and relaxed in years and he said I looked young again.  Like myself.  He begged me to not go back to Charles and the four-day long headache in the lead-up to the flight home told me he was right.



I decided to lay it out for Charles.  Apologise for the things I was sorry for and offer to start new.  I may as well not have bothered - he said he was done and as much as I was devastated, I was also relieved.

Dad calls at least once a week to make sure I'm okay.  It's a part of my shame that I make him worry about me.  I should be looking after him and not the other way around.  My God but I love him.  And for him as well as my kids I am strong and present in this world.  I keep this photo handy to remind me of why I can't go back and must never tolerate that kind of behaviour again.  Because I like being happy and I hate breaking my father's heart.

Day Eight - Charity

I've been thinking for a few days now about how to photograph the concept of charity - something I'm relying more heavily on these days due to circumstance.  This is an obvious representation of charity - beautiful things bought from the Salvos that I would never be able to afford brand new.  But there's a more subtle charity in this picture - those items are on the front seat of the CX7 my friend Erin loaned me while my car is out for the count.  It has been a sweet ride but tonight it goes back to her and Clare, a friend who knows very little about my driving ability, other than that I most recently annihilated wildlife with my own vehicle, is lending me yet another replacement car.  The final bit of charity in this photo is that those items were photographed with a phone and paid with money that were returned to me by another single mother when she found them where they'd fallen out of my bag inside the store.  I almost knocked her over when I hugged her in that heady rush of relief.  Today I am grateful for charity in all its forms.

As a side note to this photo - everything in this shot was practically brand new.  Almost no wear on the shoes and the lining in the handbag still bright and beautiful.  So what we have here is an Ooh la la handbag RRP $100, Laura Benini boots RRP $200+ and Diana Ferrari shoes $100+.  Over four hundred dollars of quality merchandise (so they say) for about $15.

Day Seven - My Whole World

These two are my whole world.  Having children means your life changes.  It isn't yours anymore.  You can't quit, you can't run away, you can't even spend the day in bed while they watch television purely because you're miserable.  But then...when you see a photo like this, why would you want to?

This was the day I couldn't really get out of bed.  Hours ticked by and I made token efforts.  Getting up to make a sandwich or disengage a fight but it was a token effort.  I was really struggling.  After a while this sort of caper starts to seem self-indulgent.  I remember being on the receiving end and I hate doing it to my kids.  So I clawed my way out of the hole and into my swimmers and drove to the closest place we could swim.  They never seem to notice how hard that can be for me - they just think I'm this awesome mother who does all this cool stuff with them.  It shames me.  Towards the end I was fading and Charlotte took over.  Taking her brother, helping him float, playing the little mother effortlessly while I laughed and took photos.

When she was born I realised that I owed her the best life I could give her which, to my mind, means being a stable foundation.  Suicide is forever off the table for me because I gave away the right to that when I had children.  I resent the hell out of that agreement with myself bitterly some days.  I want to check out. I've had enough.  They are all that holds me here - my anchor in the world.  And even then sometimes I have to be reminded that I'm bound.  For them I live.  For them I rise and fight...and wait for the day when it won't be so bloody hard anymore.

Day Six - Simple Pleasures

An early morning start, one of your best friends and a trip to the farmer's markets.  So much delicious, organic good food....and cupcakes!  And now home for a cooked breakfast.

Josh and I have both changed our diet a lot since we started taekwondo.  After-class Maccas gave way to Wok in a Box and Zambrero...and that in turn gave way to "let's just make something ourselves."  This was our first trip to the farmer's markets together for fresh, organic fruit, veg, meat and coffee.  Despite our commitment to living healthier lives, we still couldn't go past the cupcakes.  Oh my God, they were totally worth it.

Back home to the kids, Kat and Rowan, we cooked up a delicious cooked breakfast...

And then we tackled the garage together.

Another clean-up and hanging the bikes on hooks so our dojang will be one step closer to finished.  That night, tired and happy, I sent Josh a text thanking him for today.  I live for the days like this.  Just simple pleasures with good people.  The happiest of lives are not being played out on the front of magazines by those with more money than some countries.  They are the quiet moments in the lives and loves of ordinary people.

Day Five - Being the Boss

I haven't been a boss for long but I've been thinking about what makes a good boss for years.  The difference to me is that some people think that being a boss means people work for you...and some think being a boss means you work for them.  My staff are superstars.  They know the answers to almost all the questions and the ones they don't know that know how to go and find them.  I could never do my job without these amazing people and that means I have to work to be their champion, earn their respect and keep them happy.  One of them brought me flowers today so it is the perfect chance to acknowledge how much I love my team and how grateful I am for the privilege to be their boss and work for them.

Day Four - Even More Friends

Sometimes you can't catch a break.  You think things are as bad as they can be but you're coping.  Unfortunately suddenly it's worse and you realise you're not okay.  You're REALLY not okay.  But if you're me you have a friend who will follow your tears out to the dojang and another one who will show up with strawberries and almost a kilo of chocolate and then you can talk fighting styles, exercise, laugh and eat.  And instead of "why me" your last thoughts before you finally sleep will be "I'm so damn lucky and God I love you guys."

Generally I think guys have an unfair reputation as not being sensitive.  It's certainly not my personal experience.  Rowan is on the right.  He is the husband of Kat and they live with me at the moment while they're building their own house.  Rowan and I were never really close but I've always admired who he is from the distance that is the intense relationship I have with his wife.  Having them move in with me - getting to know him has been one of the unexpected joys.  He has infinite patience and understanding, a killer self-insight and a way of seeing right to the heart of other people and their faults, flaws and failings that would be cutting if it was a gift of anyone less sensitive.  It is a pleasure to rank him on par with his wife in the friendship rankings.

Josh is on the left.  Josh started martial arts at about the same time as I did.  He's done martial arts before, just like me, and it didn't take us long to realise we were pretty evenly matched.  We partnered a lot, pushed each other and often wound up eating dinner or training on at home together after class.  I can't think of any other way that we might have met but two years on I know I can't walk this world without him.  If it wasn't for him I'd literally be dead.

Day Three - Friends

Friends.  People who love you when you succeed.  People who love you even harder when you fail.  People who know you through and through and love you anyway.  It's only in this past year or two that I've really learned what it means to be friends and, beyond that, who my friends really are.  I have amazing friends.  Friends who post stuff on my wall, who hold me when I cry, meet me for lunch, make me breakfast, tell me when I'm wrong and back me when I'm right.  Friends who understand and friends who don't but try anyway.  My friends are like blood, water and air.  Necessary for life and beyond that, happiness.

Kat, on the right is pregnant and due in March (!).  Erin is on the right and that's her car behind them...the car she loaned me right after I used mine to euthanise a skippy. :-(

Day Two - New Beginnings

Day two is a lesson in why I'm doing 100 Happy Days.  To identify those things I'm grateful for even when things are bleak - to find the light in the darkness.  Today I received my decree absolute - my marriage is officially over.  I took out my wedding ring, dusted off this frame and took this photo.  I'll never wear that ring again and now the frame holds a photo of me with the kids.  I'm hurt, I'm disillusioned, I'm even wondering if I've lost my faith in love.  But still...I'm grateful for the time we had together, for the children we bore...and for a new beginning.

Day One - Taekwondo

"Today I am grateful for taekwondo.  For the sweat and the smell and the ability to feel comfortable in a body that works and does what I want.  For being able to train properly now that my foot has mostly healed.  For being fit enough to break a sweat but never be out of breath all the way through two hours of class.  For the flexibility to deliver one turning kick after another at my own head height and the power to knock over the tower when I do it.  For friends who understand my obsession and serve as my training partners, peers and teachers.  And for aviators which make me feel like a total bad arse when I limp barefoot out of the dojang with the most appalling sweat marks.  Today I'm grateful for taekwondo...passion and dedication."

I broke my foot training for NSW State Championships in November.  Since I break things a lot doing taekwondo, I didn't really think much about it - I just strapped it up with electrical tape* and kept training.

 That was a massive mistake.  A month later I had my gold medal for State and I was training for the lead-up to my first black belt grading.  I need four to qualify.  I was chewing anti-inflammatories, icing it, strapping it...but I could barely walk.  I needed time off.  I took a month as soon as I passed my grading.  It turned into six weeks.

My depression comes back when I don't train.  Training is my medication and my meditation.  My mind goes blank, I focus and my body flows.  I come off the dojang floor and I feel at peace.  Without it I go nuts.  Apart from missing the intensity there's also all the creeping fears and doubts.  Am I going to lose condition?  How much weight am I going to put on?  What happens if it doesn't get better?  How long is this going to take?

The first night back I had to sit out for the last ten minutes of class but I was elated.  It hurt but not anywhere near what it had - the deep ache of recovered injury being tested not the sharp bite of re-injury.  And I could do it.  I sweated but I wasn't out of breath.  The scales show some weight gain but doubtless it will come off fast when I'm back to full strength.  The first of 100 Happy Days.

*  Cheaper than athletic tape and comes off easily.

Project positivity

I have a lot of things to live for but honestly some days my depression is overwhelming.  I find myself so down some days that I can barely breathe and looking at the world around me it feels like I'm looking up at light from the bottom of a well.

I have no road map to save myself.

I've noticed lately the relentlessly negative everything that comes out of me.  Dressed up as cynical, sarcastic humour it's a litany of failure - a bitter insight into how much I'm not enjoying myself.

Since I can't change myself and much of my circumstance feels beyond my control I've decided to concentrate on what is in my control - how I express myself.  First of all, for my best friends, I've stopped pretending to be something I'm not.  I'm just telling them how it is. I'm not okay.  I don't know how to save myself. I wish you would just come over and hug me until I fall asleep.

But for everyone else...well that's where the biggest and hardest change of all is.  Even if I am dead miserable, I choose not to spread negative poison through the well so it infects the populace.  Nope.  Not a word.  So I've changed the things I post on Facebook, the way I talk to people, and dropped the pretty dressed-up misery.  I am big on faking it until you make it.

That same day I made this commitment to myself I found two things that made me go one step further.  The first was a woman who decided to do exactly what I'm doing with the specific goal in mind of finding someone to spend her life with.  And the second was a newspaper article about 100 Happy Days.  A commitment to take a photo a day of something you're grateful for.  I'm going to document my 100 Happy Days here in my blog and add a few more comments onto the brief blurbs that show up in Facebook.

I want to be a positive force for change in this world.  A light that shines for others even in the darkest of my nights.  It is time to get real with myself about my misery and the things I want to change and to begin sharing the things I love and am grateful.  100 Happy Days.  Maybe a lifetime of happy days and maybe, eventually someone to share it with.