Bliss and Mayhem

 Finally, my book has a name.    So it begins............

 The Elf on the Shelf was officially shoved back into the black Christmas box straight after our festive lunch. I fucked the baked potatoes, plus the pork ended up inedible bar the crackle. Thank god the crackle survived.   If you’ve played along here for a while, you would well and truly know that I’m not the biggest fan of the silly season, insert “ this is bullshit, why do I have to cook all this food and decorate a fucking tree.” We’ve been lucky enough to not endure a sequel to “cyclone storm 2017”. December cemented our two year anniversary of our tree change and the past December didn’t bring the dramatic and catastrophic welcome that we experienced a couple of years ago. It feels longer than two years. And in some ways I can still recall leaving the “burbs” in the wee hours of the morning, waving the city life goodbye while we quietly drove through the city before the sun rose. I haven’t been back since, and I’m not sure I will head down to the big smoke anytim...

 After yesterday's Code Red that was declared across Victoria, including our new home The Mallee, we were engulfed in a Orange blaze of dust and extreme heat added with fire risk and winds that you couldn't imagine, I awoke today to a clear blue sky and yesterday was like a bad dream.  You never get used to the Dust Storms. But this time around we had forewarning, which meant that we battened down the hatches and worked out our escape plan if required.  Tonight, as i drove into our little town to pick up my eldest boy from his shift of work the below song came on. And the 3km drive into town from our farm, I had a big smile on my face. The windows were down in my car, fag in hand, belting out the tunes to the song that i walked down the aisle to over 11 years ago to the man that will always be the man for me.  Yes, I walked down the Aisle to a Jimmy Barnes song. And our farm is named "Flame Trees" as it's one of our favourite songs.  So through Dust Storms, ...

 This 35 th /36 th year of my life has been one of the biggest rides of ups and downs, my friends. We have been blessed. We have also been faced with much adversity to say the least. I have learnt that not all is, as it seems. And unfortunately for me, this lesson was one I never wanted to learn as I enjoyed my naivety that all in mankind is good.     It’s not.   I’m sorry if I’m the one that is bursting your bubble. Unfortunately, there are individuals out there that do not hold themselves in a moral and high regard. Some people are just dicks. And, it took me sincerely the last 12 months or so to realize this. Just because you wouldn’t do something doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t, and easily fall asleep at night.   The written word has given me solace on many occasions to allow an outlet to shed myself of pain, discomfort, anger, disgust and sadness. Through re-reading these words I have been able to compartmentalize events, issues and stori...

 It’s been two days since I brushed my teeth. My topknot doesn’t look hip anymore, just a swiped up mop plonked on my head. Winter and relapses just aren’t my jam. But whose jam would they be? Two years ago yesterday we embarked on flying out to the desert in search of our dream tree-change. It came up in my memories in Facebook – all bright eyed and happily waiting for our flight up from Melbourne to sunny Sunraysia. If you had of told me of the challenges that we have had to face since we moved, I would have laughed it off. Advanced Rheumatoid Arthritis for one and a Mental Breakdown for the other. Great combo. I was actually going to try and bury this blog as far into the nether web web as I could and close it all down. The first sign was my domain renewal lapsing. Second was that I had felt no inclining to write in FOREVER. Third, my mojo for this writing gig had dwindled to an ant size poo along with any sort of motivation for much.   Hiding under the covers in bed ...

 It was a 40 something degree day, the day that the sky turned red and I thought that we had entered the set of a movie scene.  We had moved to our farm about 10 days earlier, still excited about being in a new area and even using GPS to get our bearings to get to the closest Kmart, Woolies and Coles ( which in reality is only 12 minute drive away ).  I had boxes still packed and piled up all around, barely emptied the kitchen items and essentials and was prepping for our first Christmas at the farm.  I call it a farm - in fact, it's just a block, 21 acres in total. The history of our "farm" was back in the day it was a roaring dairy farm with evidence still in some of our paddocks. It then evolved into a table grapes farm for many years. Cattle and sheep roamed for some time on these acres and then another farmer decided to pull all the vines out and plant acres upon acres of barley. I've been told that when it was planted with barley it looked magical with the f...

 Another beautiful sunrise i watched this morning.  Overnight is was a minimum of 25 degrees. Our "swampy" (evaporative cooling) was running all night. Most people hate sleeping in the heat but for some reason i find it the most comfortable.  You know Summer has hit the Sunraysia region when my ritual of watching the sunrise require sunglasses. The sun is BRIGHT.  It's Sunday. Which usually means that my mind starts preplanning for the week ahead. I look around the house and try to work out what needs to be cleaned up. Then I can't be bothered. It's only a couple of weeks till Christmas and I'm still trying to wrangle all the lists of what i want to get organised beforehand.  I hate Christmas time. Always have. But. The kids. The kids love this time of year.  So Santa is getting talked about here, we're trying to work out where he is going to park he sleigh on our farm. Jack definetly doesn't want him coming to his room and Santa needs to shrink t...