Peppermint Dragon.

2011-09-02T18:53:00.001+10:00

So much for the first day of spring inspiring me to get up and start ticking off my boxes.
It's a psych thing, a whole lovely list of things that I should be aiming for.
I just want to stay in bed and self isolate and read Jane Austen novels.
I have exactly one month left on my year long self portrait every day project and I gotta admit that through this whole year I haven't really developed my portrait skills, I didn't suddenly wake up half way through the project and discover my inner Annie Liebovitz. I've taken some great shots, I've taken some pretty tragic ones as well. At the end of the month I'm going to be reviewing 365 shots, lots of them in white shirts which seems to be my defining default look, lots of shots in which pajama bottoms have become staple pants wear and very few close ups because my inner muppet seems to be ruling my eyebrows and lets face it, when climbing out of a depression, eyebrows become important.

Five Hours Later......

I confess, I went back to bed. The pull of Persuasion proved too much even though the sun had come out.

Sun is vitally important to improving my condition. It gives me an instant lift when I am out in the sun. So I have to wonder why the self isolation with a 200 year old book today?

To be fair to Jane, Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth usually put me in a good mood to.

The usual excuses just don't wash with me these days.

Yes I've had a turbulent few months and I feel like booking myself into a boot camp or maybe a day spa - for a month.

I put up my mood board in my office yesterday and it didn't inspire me to go and greet the day today.

Note to self, stick up a picture of people enjoying OUTSIDE!

Part of my pysch inspired ticky boxy sheet is "Time spent outside". To tick the box technically all I need to do is to walk outside and check the mail box. But that's cheating.

What I need more than a tick and flick is a schedule. A slip of paper telling me "You must be here at such and such a time."

I live in a place that is easily accessible for most activities, from bush walking (ergh!!!! So not me, I'm afraid of snakes) to horse riding, kite surfing, ice skating. I can take photography classes or hook up with a local photography group. I tend not to do that because believe it or not I'm actually quite shy. Something else the psych is trying to turn around.

I find it quite strange because although I am naturally shy, when I embody the Kate Isis persona I'm larger than life, boldly striding into a graveyard shovel in hand. And for those of you who haven't read my take on Thunderbolt that last is going to sound mighty strange. Trust me, it isn't as sinister as it sounds.

I've never really been a group person. I prefer solitude, peace, quiet and occasional exposure to humanity on mass. Since getting into the welfare industry and thankfully getting back out of it I'm not so sure I want to immerse myself in the trials tribulations and celebrations of others lives just yet.

Photography allows me to observe the world without actually making too much social contact with it.

Over the next few weeks I have decisions to make on mass. On where when and how I slide back into society.

But for now, just give me a blanky and some Jane.

2011-08-23T12:03:00.001+10:00

Who knew alcohol could produce the same effect as Prozac? Mark's birthday went off without a hitch. Although the weather was nasty, drizzling rain and overcast all weekend, we had the compensation of a roaring fire and copious amounts of alcohol.
I'm not a big drinker. An unfortunate incident with a whole bottle of tequila when I was 19 put paid to Kate ever really spending her twenties getting pissed on a friday night. In my thirties I was pretty much on call for five years and so the non drinking by preference became standard practice.

I have a double standard about alcohol. While I think it's fine for men to get pissed I think it's truly unladylike for women to do the same. In fact a woman who drinks till their swaying and slurring really turns me off, which unfortunately was a factor in ending my last relationship with a woman. At Feral Avenue I had a neighbour who reguarly went out on weekends and got so inebriated that she became a bit of a running joke, "lets see how long before she bursts into tears and starts the floor show". Now I may take myself too seriously, but I don't ever want to be that woman.

But back to the party.

We had the most amazing lunch which blended nicely into dinner. The afternoon was spent with the kids and we sat out in the glassed in room out the back watching the rain mist over the lake and talked. And laughed. And ate.

I rarely give out recipes, because, well, if you have my recipes then you don't need to come and eat with me. But I'm going to give you this one. A topping for baby roasted potatoes.

Roast four whole cloves of garlic skin on for about twenty minutes in the oven. Remove from oven and squeeze garlic out of skin into a mortar. Add a drizzle of olive oil, a sprig of rosemary stripped and a pinch of sea salt. Mash to a paste and add 2 tablespoons of aioli. Mix well. Add half a cup of light pouring cream and combine. Pour over potatoes.

Yummy. Want more.

I think because we'd eaten so well the nights events turned out not to have the hangover effect they may have had.

I discovered jelly shots (jello shots for you americans) last year. Yes I know I'm a late bloomer, what can I say?

The first lot went down like lollies. The second lot, made with three quarters of a bottle of vanilla vodka were just a little bit more potent.

And when you add to the mix two bottles of bourbon and a bottle of what was suspiciously called "Wet Cat" which was peach schnapps, vodka and cranberry, well you just had to get out the shot glasses.

Drinking games are also something new to me. Remember I spent the last two decades being miss priss who doesn't drink. We had a Trivial pursuit game and dispensed with the board and all of those pieces of pie. Everybody got a handful of cards and we went around the table. You get an answer right you get a shot.

I'm a trivial pursuit legend. I love the game. I'm full of weird and obscure facts and my little stack of empty shot glasses grew like a sticky house of cards.Vic used to quiz me with music trivia questions while I was making dinner so much thanks to Vic I had the entertainment questions down pat. As it turns out I know stuff all about sport and even less about who won various events in the olympics of any given year.

I was surrounded by a group of people who are extremely intelligent and that made the game all the more fun. As the night wore on the answers were all on the tips of our tongues but refused for some reason to make the leap to verbalisation.

So this is what I learnt from a night with a bottle of alcohol, its okay to let your hair down. There is no award for being straight laced and uptight all the time.

Did I have a hangover? No, I don't get them for some reason.

Did I enjoy myself? Hell yeah.

And the best cure for getting everyone up and moving the next day? Bacon, eggs and pancakes.

2011-08-18T16:18:00.000+10:00

The last week has been topsy turvey. One minute I'm up the next I'm down again. Its a pity that psychological exercise such as this doesn't burn calories the way aerobics does. I'd be thin as a whippet.

On Saturday I am hosting a birthday lunch for flatmate Mark. Problem is the closer it gets to "party time" the less inclined I am to get through the long long long list of chores that have to be accomplished by then.

I spent yesterday doing my psych homework - a long list of evaluations so that he knows exactly which box to put me in. Answering questions with multiple answers such as "Are you getting less pleasure from usually enjoyable activities?" Eight pages of it. By the end I was spent and was getting no pleasure from anything.

Yesterday was Marks actual birthday and I used the slow cooker to make the famous casserole that had the boys salivating all day thinking about it. The casserole turned out great, meat so tender it just fell apart in your mouth. But I felt redundant once I'd chopped and sliced and put everything in the pot and switched it on.

It's cooking without really contributing and I'm guessing that eventually I'll learn to love it but it'll take time to grow on me.

This new kitchen marvel gave me time to prepare a cake. A chocolate fudge cake laced with raspberries and layered with cream and milk chcoolate ganache. So in a way I was happy, sifting and stirring and beating away. And then because everything was so pleasantly under control I reached down into the cupboard to grab my cake pans - which were mysteriously missing.

How do you lose cake pans?

I opened every cupboard, I searched high and low and came to the conclusions that for whatever reason they've decided to take a holiday outside of my house.

There was nothing left for me to do but jump in the car and take a quick trip to the shops to purchase more.

Note to self - purchase padlock to lock up cake pans.

Ten minutes later I strode back in to my kitchen with three shiny new cake pans in hand.

And five minutes later I was sliding two very moist cakes into the oven.

I stood at the sink doing the dishes thinking finally I am back on track when suddenly I stopped dead. I was missing something. My hands stayed still in their soapy confines and I strained my brain to think what the hell had I overlooked.

Mental checklist - Dinner - in that contraption cooking away like a modern day smartarse. Check.

Cake bubbling away nicely in the oven. Check.

Bread, homemade and waiting to go in the oven to go with smart arse technological casserole. Check.

It seemed everything in my world was just were it ought to be.

Staring out the window at the misty rain I shook my head at being so paranoid, blamed it all on the smartarse slow cooker putting me off my game, and went back to washing dishes.

And then it hit me.

The kid.

The one I was supposed to pick up from school after his hour at the homework centre.

Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck!!!!!!

Glancing at the clock I realised that the homework centre had been let out about ten minutes earlier.

And in glancing at the clock I was faced with a conundrum.

Two cakes in a tempremental oven versus child in the rain.

Cakes, child, child, cakes.

I'm ashamed to admit that the cakes really were my biggest concern.

And so the argument ran in my head, Burnt cakes, sick child.

Much as I hate leaving cakes in the oven to possibly ruin the only thing I loathe more is sick child. Snotty coughy sick child.

Fuck!

And so into car and the quickest trip to the school imaginable. If a cop had pulled me over I was guilty of speeding and of possible chocolate abuse.

The child was less than amused but understanding.

The trip home just as fast with me maniacally repeating my mantra, don't burn., don't burn, don't burn, with the child looking at me in utter bewilderment.

I flew into the house and checked the cakes. Just done.

I sank to the floor sighing. That was too close a call. next time the child would have to walk home in the rain. Compassion just can't get the better of culinary endeavour, especially now that the crock pot king is sitting on my bench mocking me with it efficiency.

I let the child lick the bowl and the beaters to soothe my guilt.

And now I have a day and a bit to clean the house spick and span, to cook, to make yet another birthday cake for seventeen hungry people. I'm tired just thinking about it.

2011-08-15T13:14:00.000+10:00

When you think of the word present what does your mind conjure up?

Something lavishly wrapped and bedecked with bows and ribbon?

Something small and intimate and equally well wrapped?

When you think of the perfect gift for a 38 year old with an ongoing cold and a depression based illness what would you give her?

Flowers, Perfume? A day at a spa?

The boys put me to bed late yesterday afternoon. The medication I am taking leaves me feeling nauseous and kittenish at times and yesterday was one of those days. While I snuggled down and slept it off the boys went and did the shopping and started dinner.

I woke to the smell of steaks cooking on the barbeque and the sounds of productivity coming from the kitchen.

That, when I am feeling so low is gift enough, but I was to be further surprised last night.

Dinner was wonderful, as only dinner cooked by another can be.

And then came the present.

In a house full of boys, full of testosterone and dirty socks it’s hard at times to feel girly.

I like scarves, and water colors and fashion magazines.

The boys proudly presented me with…………………….

A slow cooker.

All to the betterment of my Boeuf Bourguignon which the boys crave as only hard working men can.

There are two ways to take a present like this.

Gracefully, like Nigella being awarded some labour saving device with which to extend her passion for food OR like Gordon Ramsey – “what the fuck is wrong with you people?”

I fulminated between the two emotions. I found that my reaction lay somewhere in the middle.

True, flowers would have been nice, but on the other hand the ability to cook a casserole without it sticking to the bottom of my rather inadequate pot has its virtues as well.

I cook out of necessity about 345 days a year. I have a family that eats like a small army and so the meals have to come and keep coming in order to sustain them.

I cook for relaxation, because in the kitchen I am usually in total control. And I do become Ramseyish. When the boys, salivating for an evening meal decide to “help” and whisk a dish out to the table before I am done garnishing it I have no problem in letting loose my displeasure.

I am a master of the raised eyebrow when they sneak into the kitchen and dip their fingers in sauces or steal bits and pieces. I administer whacks and smacks with whatever implement I have at hand without batting an eyelid.

I cook for fun and the love of it. Trying out different recipes and techniques, inventing my own, putting my own spin on a dish, this is what gets me off.

The biggest compliment I’ve ever received came from a group of twenty something’s after I had served them breakfast after a night partying.

“If Kate cooked in a prison I’d get thrown into jail just so I could have her cooking three times a day”.

You’ve got to be happy with a wrap like that.

But back to the slow cooker, now sitting in its box as yet unexplored.

It is a realm I’ve yet to explore, the slow cooked meal.

Well, actually I do slow cook things but it’s usually a case of simmer a long time and check often. Putting everything into a machine and pressing a button somehow seems not much of a contribution to the whole process.

I’m a girl who likes to get her hands dirty and sticky and coated in homemade breadcrumbs. I’m making fondant icing next week which is the culinary equivalent of kneading superglue into a manageable form.

I have a feeling that slow cooking is a euphemism for manageable mush for people who have lost their dentures. I’m sure it is no longer like that but there you go, preconceived ideas are hard to rid yourself of.

I shall test this theory next week with some lamb shanks.

Back, for a moment to the concept of gift giving. If you are reading this, my hungry, hungry boys, I love that you buy me things to ease my workload.

What I’d really like, more than anything else is one of those bamboo display ladders to hang my scarves and jewelry on.

2011-08-10T21:28:00.000+10:00

I used to be so good at this; Blogging that is.

Writing the chronicles was fun, the words and rants just seemed to flow forth freely.

Topics abounded, meme’s were fun and the research for it had me so wrapped up.

This time around it feels fragmented and fractured, like I’ve got something to say but just can’t spit it out.

It’s the most glorious day outside and I should be out and about enjoying it but here I am in the house again. I can’t seem to make that transition back to the girl I once was.

I’ve done the laundry, taken out the garbage and written down a so called foolproof recipe for fondant so that I can decorate this monster cake that is due in a month. (I like to be well prepared.)

I finally met the new next door neighbor today. She came rattling on my door because she had heard the bedlam that is the neighbors down the back and the once a fortnight rendition of “Mum I hate your guts, let me bash you senseless.”

Who needs to go to work when you live with it over your back fence.

The worst thing that ever happened in Australia was the government coming up with the gem that you couldn’t hit your kids.

They spread the message through schools and children came home and did whatever they pleased then turned to their parents and said “You can’t hit me because I’ll go to school and tell.”

It was a piece of legislation that spelled the beginning of the end for discipline.

If I sit and think about why I am shutting the world out lately it’s an easy answer.

I have a question that only I can answer, and I have answerer’s block big time.

The question – What do you want to do career wise?

The answer of late – I have no freakin clue.

This question was so much easier to answer at six years old, you wanted to be a fireman, a teacher, a daffodil, whatever, you had some clear path of destiny no matter how impossible that destiny may have been.

Approaching forty and with the same dilemma, I have to admit this question has me stumped.

I know clearly what I don’t want to do.

I don’t ever want to be sitting in the office of a residential care facility. I don’t ever want to go through the motions of any community services job where, let’s face it, no matter what you do it rarely make a difference.

I can’t continue to kid myself that 1 save in 100 cases should be something that I can celebrate.

I never want to bang my head against the wall of mediocre services that are really just going through restrictive motions.

You bash your child it’s so much easier to just put a bullet in your head. Problem solved.

As to what I would like to do instead?

BIG BLANK WALL.

What interests do I have?

I like photography.

I like to cook.

I like fashion but I spend more time in my jarmies than the models of a lingerie magazine.

I like to write but right now the words as I have said are not flowing. They’re leaking indiscriminately. I haven’t been back at this long enough to turn a perfect phrase.

And being a perfectionist it annoys me.

I’ve given myself until Christmas this year to decide where I want to be going. If I don’t have a spark of inspiration by then I’ll look at an apprenticeship next year.

Four and a half months and counting.

The question is what will Kate be when she grows up?

2011-08-10T00:08:00.000+10:00

Part of my huge grouch fest from this week has been about realising that as adults we really don't give ourselves permission for much fun. The serious side of things takes over in every aspect of our lives. We have to get up for work, commute, we time our sex sessions so that we get enough sleep, we buy healthy and count calories.

Filling out the Census form tonight I suddenly thought, "Hey this would be so much more fun if the government provided us with a stable, a donkey and three wise dudes with gifts."

Census questions are designed to make you wrinkle your nose at the invasion of privacy every five years.

But they never ask you anything really worth knowing, like what colour underwear you are wearing, when you last had sex and what position, what do you really think of the fashions donning the latest Prime Minister? (Dreadful, she should get a stylist and a new wardrobe cause those suits she wears just ain't cut right)

All they are interested in are numbers. No fun at all. No room for individualism (except for me cause I filled it out in purple glittery ink, fuck their blue/black rule) no asking the average Australians opinion on anything.

They want to work out the "average" wage, the average birth rate, which suburbs could be potential hotbeds of terrorist activity, crap like that.

No fun. Zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing.

I miss fun.

And driving in to the doctors today to do my mental health plan a song I haven't heard for ten years begun on the radio. Billy Bedlam's rip off of the Australian cricket commentary team called "Marvellous".

Straight away huge grin, volume turned up and I began to sing along and smile.

My weekend holds the promise of going to the coffee and chocolate festival sans kids. Of grabbing lunch at a cafe and walking the foreshore. Sans kids. Of playing pool mid afternoon and listening to a jukebox.

Bliss. Mega Bliss. Wholesome chocolatey sans kids adult fun.

Fun should definately be on the bring it back list.

2011-08-08T23:27:00.001+10:00

I've been thinking about the concept of the wicked stepmother. Fairy tales seem inclined to damn the stepmother to hell.

And while its true that Cinderella and Snow White had it pretty tough at home; are all wicked stepmothers really ready to poison the child's apples? And furthermore are all step children angelic victims?

Well hell no they are not.

Picture this, a nice well ordered home, one that you are free to be yourself in. You have time, space, serenity, privacy. In fact you can walk around butt naked all day if you so wish.

Eventually you'll get used to this lifestyle. Mozart on the stereo, grown up food simmering away on the stove, towels hung up in an orderly fashion in the bathroom, high thread count Egyptian cotton sheets on well made beds.

And then introduce a child into the mix.

Wet towels rolled up in a ball containing wet smelly clothes on the bedroom floor.

Gremlins wanting to get on your computer to check out Facebook.

Never having leftovers because all of a sudden there's an eating machine inhabiting your space.

Forget having a cold lamb sandwich the night after a piping hot lamb roast, the fridge goblin has already been at it and you're left with stringy dregs.

Teenage male feet that smell like gangrene crossed with corpse remains.

And I don't even want to think about what he is doing in bed at night to my sheets.

Far too traumatic.

This week Billy The Kid had an assignment to do for his English class.

About Zombies, because God knows they don't read books anymore.

He dragged his feet and did as little as possible on it, wanting to leave it all to the last minute.

Ok, so far he's a normal kid.

But he's living in the home of a none to tolerant academic.

To cut a long slowly simmering story short, I lost the plot, blew my stack, thought about possibly poisoning his apples.

The assignment was a piece of pop culture fluff that he could have knocked over in two afternoons.

Two long drawn out weeks later and on Sunday he goes off to Sydney with his father without having completed the assignment that was due today. The assignment called for props or visuals to be used as aids in the aural part of presenting.

Is there some reason I should spend any part of my Sunday without the child getting photographs printed?

If he had asked earlier in the week there would have been no problem. But to leave it till the last minute and then say, "uh I forgot", well in my book that deserves a clip around the ear.

And yes I believe in corporal punishment.

Having a child come into your life full time when it was never meant to be that way can sometimes push you to the breaking point.

Sometimes I wish I could rub a bit of cyanide into his lunches.

Sometimes I sigh that I don't have a head huntsman on the payroll to take said child out into the woods and bring me back his heart.

Sometimes I wish things could go back to the way they used to be.

Sometimes I get so fed up with his teenage drama that I just want to curl up in a ball and ignore him completely.

Does this make me wicked?

Step mothers are much maligned creatures.

We're not wicked, we just want to walk from bathroom to bedroom naked occasionally.

And some days when the world of teenage melodrama becomes too much you just gotta get yourself out and hide.

2011-08-05T23:25:00.000+10:00

Ommlette is getting almost too big to sit on my shoulders so I took the opportunity to capture this before he gets any bigger.

I've been in a bit of a black hole for a few days now. It seems the bio hazard is a trigger source for rage. Add rage to Bi Polar and well, you get the picture, and it ain't a Monet.

Ommlette is fascinated by Billy The Kid and spends as much time here now as possible.

The easiest way to pull me out of a rage is to have something else to focus on. Ommlette does that, gives you a small red headed hurricane to focus on.

The last few days have been a complete change in weather, its almost felt like early summer and we are still in the last month of winter here.

This weekend I've promised myself to get out and about and enjoy this unseasonable weather while it lasts.

I'm sure Mother Nature has at least one more suprise in store for us before she gives herself up to the joys of spring.

But for right now my own personal little ray of sunshine is tucked up in bed with Billy the Kid.

The Chores Of Middle Age.

2011-08-04T10:36:00.001+10:00

I'm not quite sure how I feel about yesterdays 365 photo. Kind of reminds me of that "Leave Britney Alone" YouTube video without the makeup or the crying. Yesterday I was agitated with a capital AG. I just wanted to roam around the shops but it seems every killer mummy within fifty kilometres was intent on roaming around behind me. Now I don't know about you but for me perusing scatter cushions shouldn't involve being invaded by coffee hyped mummies with suburban tank strollers barging into your aisle of the shop. They should stick to things they know, like childrens' toys and big stretchy comfort fit underwear.
I tried the book section but they followed.
In the end I gave up.
It was my intent to keep busy yesterday in order not to give in to temptation and just fall asleep. The worst part of having a cold is the constant drip drip of your nose all through the night. Makes me think a leaky tap must be the most suicidal piece of household equipment.

To add insult to injury the child's mother rang yesterday.

Note to self - DO NOT answer phone to parasites.

I answered and in response got the gurgling sound of her crying.

Oh drama drama drama you got nothin on this chick.

Her friend was killed in a truck accident yesterday and she wanted me to tell the child. Because she just couldn't face it.

Which puts me into a bit of a conundrum doesn't it. I'm burnt out and suffering from compassion fatigue. I have a cold, I don't really give a fuck about anything and I just want to go to bed and sleep for a week.

But no, I have to listen to the continuing soap opera that is the bio hazards life.

Half an hour of drama as it turned out. Who knew the bio hazard was a particularly poorly written sitcom!

I sighed, got off the phone and went to hunt out Billy The Kid.

I just didn't have the energy to go into grief counsellor mode, but as step mum you just don't have a choice in these matters.

Billy The Kid was busy scarfing the last of the leftover lasagna. I told him his mothers news, his fork stopped in mid air for half a second before continuing towards his mouth. He looked at me, shrugged and said, "Hmmm, OK. I bet mum is upset. I didn't really like him anyway."

And that was that. No muss, no fuss.

Its not that being a teenager he is desensitised to violence and death, its just that mums friends tend to come and go quicker than a flying monkey in Oz.

He used to like this guy well enough but something happened on an access visit a few months ago of which he won't speak and now Billy doesn't have much time for this particular gentleman at all.

I nodded my head, told him he knew where I was if he wanted to talk and left the kitchen. I'm a big believer in teaching kids to trust their own inner judgements about people.

Billy The Kid.

2011-08-02T23:26:00.003+10:00

The first time I met the child who now resides with me his eyes screamed one message loud and clear - "Love me, Please!"

I went to see my doctor today which meant I wasn't home when he came back from school this afternoon.

This is something that he has gotten used to, having me there when he gets home from school.

Today I drove into the driveway and found him chopping wood for the fire.

He looked at me with those big brown cow eyes and said "I thought you might have run off and weren't coming back."

He was joking, but you could see in his eyes behind the joke was a serious child with fears of abandonment.

He drives me nuts, this child who has come into my life needing so much attention that I sometimes, in selfish moments, think "why me?"

But at the same time, the need for stability and having a mother figure he can depend on means that as much as I would sometimes like to jump in the car and head for the nearest border, I can't.

He still sees his biological mother every second weekend for 36 hours, and not a second more or she's on the phone complaining. But he is getting to the age where he is starting to put two and two together.

He loves her, but he doesn't trust her.

He wants to spend time with her but now realises that the latest boyfriend comes first.

He wants to talk to her but knows that anything he says will make his mother cry.

And he knows they are crocodile tears so that she doesn't have to hear anything she doesn't want to.

He's been abandoned twice by the one person in the world who shouldn't ever have abandoned him.

And this is how I became "mum".

Mistakes That Work.

2011-08-01T19:20:00.000+10:00

Every now and then you shoot a few dozen shots and at the end of the session when your almost ready to pack it all in you shoot a half dozen more.

This is usually where you get the more natural looking shots.

I hate that because its just not something you can fudge. You can't just tell yourself, ok I've shot 150 frames so now I'll just press the button six more times and get the shot I really want.

Hung over from a full on night time assault of snot nosedness I really wasn't very interested in shooting my self portrait today.

Lacking motivation I decided late in the afternoon to climb into the paperbark tree in my front garden.

Paperbark is a great looking tree but as I learned afterwards, it tends to stick all over you. And it totally ruins black clothes.

But there you have it, occasionally stop trying and you end up with favourable results anyway.

Want That Cow.

2011-07-30T21:07:00.000+10:00

Saturday without the kid.
Directions, Head northish north westish.
Stop for steak sandwich.
Continue.
Find Bush.
Find Track.
Find cow.
Stop and play with baby cow.
Continue along Track.
Come to Intersection on top of Mountain, realise where we are.
Go westish, downhill.
Find River.
Take more photo's near river.
Step in puddle.
Realise mountain water in middle of winter equals bloody cold.
Feel water seep through shoe.
Drive back up Track.
Slide back down track because track is clay.
Break part of car.
Finally get back on to track.
Realise sun is going down.
And it's getting cold and I have a sore belly.
Proceed homewards.
Stop for Pie and cake on the way home.

Educational Standards Haven't Fallen, They've Been Dumped Wholesale.

2011-07-29T14:25:00.000+10:00

I remember school fondly. It takes the passing of twenty years to start to look back on schooling with fondness.

Billy the kid, is currently 14 years old and completing Year Nine at High School.

Many things about this school year have had me somewhat concerned for this generation.

Text books are a thing of the past it seems. Instead in this environmentally friendly age we have teachers passing out reams of work sheets. Do you know what a 14 year old boy does with reams of sheets? Does he paste them in his work book? No. They appear at the end of a few weeks as ragged tatty poor excuses for information because they have been stuffed helter skelter into his bag and never given a second thought.

Schools really have no form of discipline these days so if you don't complete homework or even class work, well what are they going to do about it? They note it on their school reports and pass them up grades every year anyway. Hence children who come out of school at age 16 not being able to read.

Billy the kid handed me his latest English assignment yesterday.

English was one of my favourite subjects at school primarily because I love to read.

Seven months into the school year and Billy the Kid hasn't picked up a book yet in his English class.

The current subject of study is the horror movie genre. They watch DVD's and more impressively watched "The Simpsons" Little Treehouse of Horror.

Horrified is a suitable expression for my feeling towards the current English curriculum.

Getting back to the assignment, the topic, should he chose to even bother doing it is naturally horror.

Pick a character from a horror genre and explain origins, behaviour, historical classification, relevence, reality, etc and provide supporting visual material and props.

Billy the kid has chosen Zombies.

Well my dear, no, Zombies didn't originate in Dawn of the Dead. Not even in Night of the Living Dead.

No, you need to dip a little further back in History.

His answer, "Its not a history assignment, its for English".

Try looking up Vodou practices in Haiti and West Africa for Zombie origins.

And so off he goes to the computer to ostensibly "research" his topic.

Heard from the office - "oh cool, look there's a picture of Ned Flanders ( of Simpsons fame).

I've gotta ask you blogsphere at large, What planet are we living on? And more importantly who is going to run it when all of the properly educated adults are too old?

Of Milestones Met....

2011-07-28T17:10:00.000+10:00

I do a self portrait every day as part of the 365 days project. I started this once before and got to day 300 before I just couldn't take it anymore.
Well, here I am again at day 300.
Inspiration for today? A smidge of an idea that I have been working on for about two weeks.
Normally I have totally forgotten about my milestone days in this project (Day One, Day 50, 100, blah blah.....) and I've uploaded just an ordinary photo for that day.

This time I wanted to mark it in some special way. A statement of "I made it back to where I was before". But when I thought about it, if I was truly serious I'd be marking day 301 as my turning point in this project, but thats tomorrow and who can think about formulating a photo for a day that hasn't arrived yet????

Location, Location......

2011-07-27T22:18:00.001+10:00

We have yet another birthday in one months time. We were planning a weekend away but the venue of choice is booked solid till November so nix that idea.

Instead we've decided on doing a Mad Hatter's Tea Party theme and all thats left to plan is the location.

When you live in a place with so many variables as to location and weather this makes narrowing down the perfect spot a tad more difficult.

I now have a few weeks to choose between the lake and its environs, either near the water or on the water on a party pontoon, the beach, the mountains and the numerous lookouts or the rainforest I came across a few weeks ago.

August in Newcastle is traditionally the windy month, so do we dice with gum tree branches possibly falling on us or perhaps being sand blasted by an onshore breeze.

I'm praying for one of those clear fine days because I really want this one set outdoors.

The idea of invading a corner of a public space and setting up a mad hatters tea party with a large table and squishy armchairs and guests arriving in costume is what I am crossing my fingers and hoping for. It just won't translate into an indoor space.

I'll spend the weekend visiting all of the places on my shortlist.

After all, the older you get the sillier you should be for your birthday.

2011-07-26T00:43:00.000+10:00

Bonnie and Clyde stayed up late making chocolate mud cake and now have to go to bed if they have any chance of getting up in the morning so no blog post tonight of any description.

Upstaged.

2011-07-24T22:01:00.000+10:00

Some days its really hard to find any inspiration to get up and moving. All you want to do in your time off is sloth around in your pajama's. Especially with the sun playing peek a boo with overcast shitty weather.
I was contemplating yet another Kate in her jarmies shot because quite frankly I have a great book and my electric blanket lends itself well to slothy hours in bed doing sweet FA on the weekends.
But in the interest of having a photostream that isn't littered with my pajama's greatest hits, I got up and went out. Found a jetty. Which looked promising.
And then out of nowhere a random woofer appears.
When you're laying on a jetty taking a self portrait don't ever say hi to a random dog otherwise you'll end up like me, getting big sloppy doggy kisses.
Cute but ultimately ewwww. :)

2011-07-23T22:58:00.000+10:00

After seven months of being mother first, worker second, housekeeper third and wife fourth I've forgotten to include me in that picture.
Sure I take a daily self portrait but I take no joy in even holding the camera, let alone shooting with it.
I took my jewelry off about five years ago and put it down on the hall table and haven't picked it up since.
I walked out of the house, got in my car, drove to work and somewhere along the way Kate disappeared.

All day I've had the feeling that I was missing something important, that there was something about this day that should have given me a jolt.
It wasn't until I got home and looked at the calender that I found out that I have been running a week ahead of schedule, thinking that it was my mothers birthday tomorrow.
As I discovered, her birthday isn't for another week.
Today would have been my beloved grandmother's 96th birthday. How can I have forgotten so soon?
Yesterday I was incredibly out of sorts, swinging from one bi polarish tangent to another.
Today that mood makes sense. A gentle spiritual nudge from my grandparents who are always around me if I stop long enough to let their prescience in.

Fridays with the boys.

2011-07-22T22:47:00.000+10:00

Friday nights - according to Sex and The City, are supposed to be date nights, dressy, jewel studded, dancing the night away.
Me? Well my friday night often involves the boys of the younger generation.
They really should write a handbook for the recently stepmothered. Telling you all of the things that you need to know and all of the things you need to avoid.
Like this for instance. Did you know that the average person can consume a reasonable amount of food in one sitting, but a teenage boy? Double it, quadruple it and keep it coming. And then you'll do a late night run to Macca's to get them a "snack". The oldest of my boys considers one of those four hamburgers, four chips plus chicken nuggets meal deal boxes as a snack.
They don't tell you that having teenage boys means you'll NEVER have milk in the house EVER AGAIN, just forlorn cartons with a pitiful dribble in the bottom and two boys starring mournfully at the milo tin.

Your sofa? Better chuck it and get one of those models made from industrial strength steel. Your pretty somewhat impractical for a man cushions? Forget it, chuck them now, they'll end up in some oooshy rhombus shaped mess, lying pathetically prostrate on the floor having been flung there during a wrestling bout.

I'm not even going to talk about the bathroom, too hideous for a mild mannered blog.
So for Friday night did I don some killer heels? No.
Did I bother to shave my legs? Nope.
I did however end up watching Stuart Little while the boys talked about "sack" (yep you heard right) injuries incurred while trying various tricks on their scooters.
And then we watched Zac Efron in some rubbish. I didn't catch the name of the movie because hello, what the hell am I doing watching Zac effing Efron?
Now I know why women my age flock to join bookclubs.

Shhhhh

2011-07-21T16:20:00.000+10:00

4pm today - I've just done my daily self portrait shot. I'm amazed that I didn't break my leg doing this shot as my bed cover is so slippery.
The roast beast for tonights dinner is in the oven slow sweating and browning hopefully to perfection.
The puppies Joe Murphy and Junie are cuddled up together on a duvet on the back verandah - refugeeing from the cold.
The child is out in the middle of a rainstorm attempting to ride his bike through a five foot puddle. I was going to go the concerned mother route and tell him no, he can't go out in the rain because he'll get sick, but what the hell, I loved being soaked in rain when I was a kid so I say live and let live.

Listening to the rain outside far outstrips a tv blaring it's nonsense in the background.

That'll all change in about an hour as the house "comes to life" with the sounds of the boys getting home from work plus one - my older stepson is on his way up with his father, so four boys in the house tonight means testosterone overload and an early night for Kate snuggling up with my electric blanket and a good book.

Life at the moment is kind of like that Bjork song - shhh, shhh, shhhh, Ka Blam!

Things that make you go Hmmm.

2011-07-19T00:42:00.000+10:00

I just received a text message.
I hate my phone and so its on silent constantly. Luckily for my friend my phone happened to be sitting on the coffee table in front of me so I saw it flash.
My friend has been living in a flat for the past six months. His text tonight says " There's absolutely no joy in this flat at all, not even a chocolate biscuit."

It got me thinking about men and the way they manage their depression periods.
Women have the depression necessities downpat. Chocolate, Carbs, Pajama's, fluffy bathrobes in which to mooch around the house. They have the necessary weepie selection of dvd's and the woman power ballads with which to do the housework and work up a hatred of their male captors.
And lets face it, women, when they really need them, go to the doctors, spill their guts and get the drugs.

But what do single men of a certain age do when they go through a depression period?
Now, I've been to this guys flat, his last one, not the latest den of doom.
Newspapers piled up, alcohol, and a bedroom screaming for a stylist.

This guy is a world traveller. But anything mildly exotic?
Excluding the half empty jar of Thai green curry paste? Nope. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
This guy has kids. But his photos are all stored on his phone.

In fact from his flat you really couldn't tell what spieces of human being lived there.
I've got a friend serving time in jail who has a nicer set up than this guy.

I decided that for all of the experience I have working in welfare that this subject - men and depression - is still one of the things we just don't cover, or even really talk about. So what hope have men got who are going through a depression period?

Directions.

2011-07-18T01:58:00.000+10:00

Coming back to writing a blog on a somewhat daily basis has, as you can see from the date stamp of the previous post, been something of a challenge.
Anyone who was fammiliar with the Kate Isis Chronicles will know that I just ran out of steam when my life was invaded by too many cooks spoiling the proverbial broth.

So much water has run under the bridge since the days of the chronicles.
Three years on and I find myself sitting here reflecting on the characters and adventures from the Kate Isis Chronicles.
The old adage, "The more things change the more they stay the same" definitely rings true.
Here's whats been happening -
* Had an obsessional man in my life who skitzed out and hasn't been seen or heard from in two years and thank god for that. If any one force really determined the end of the Kate Chronicles it was this guy. Obsessional, Out of Control, Ultimately bad for Kate.
* I've moved and now put a vast body of water between me and almost everyone I knew.
* Very few friends and acquaintances survived the slashing and burning of the last two years worth of therapy, Including my bestest bud since the beginning of time. You can only hear the "Next time we go out for lunch we'll let you know" speech so often before something had to give.
* For quite a while, almost a year I put down my camera and refused to pick it up.
* And for the last six months I've been a full time mother with a full time job. I'm so frickin sleep deprived I don't know what day it is.

Things haven't been entirely slash and burn, there have been some lighter moments of levity with a couple of characters known only to the long term faithful of the chronicles.
* Miss Messy Jessy has had her first child. A big bouncy baby boy. I once told her that if she fell pregnant before she was 16 I'd bury her in my backyard. I'm happy to say that she heeded my warning and it took a few more years than that. Miss Messy is now 21.
* Dobby, the youngest of the three children I was so close to during the writing of the chronicles has finally at age 11 found his voice and issued a statement to the still evil Cruella - "Mum I want to go and live with my dad".
* Super Dad himself is settled and has just got the all clear from having his vasectomy reversed (which honestly I think Cruella performed herself with a kitchen fork) and is due to start making a baby with his new partner. I'm so tickled pink for them. From a distance.
* I've exhibited two of my photographs in a combined exhibition in Planet Newy. Now that I am picking up my camera again on a daily basis I hope to take this further.
* Just over three months ago I had a semi trailer (a huge mother of a truck) smashed into me late one night on a return journey from Sydney. Totally the truckers fault, he was speeding and asleep at the wheel. Wrote my car Tilda off entirely. But I survived and as fate would have it, I now drive the sluttiest little car ever, which I've named Paris.

To get to this point I've given up alot, in hindsight some of it I regret and some of it I'd been holding on to far too long. My career and lifestyle changes have been radical, but for now, when I wake up in the morning my life feels like its finally starting to steer in the right direction.

What can I say, some people are late bloomers.

And So To Begin.....

2010-12-13T12:23:00.002+11:00

There is a great line in the movie "Zombieland" about how once the world goes to shit we'll never have to put up with Facebook Status updates ever again.
I love the idea of somebody pulling the plug on the plague that is Facebook.

They call it "social networking". I have to wonder what is so social about sitting at a computer updating ex school buddies you haven't seen in twenty years about your plans for the weekend?
It's all just an interactive Days of our Lives, a poor mans reality show with spelling mistakes.

My semi step son, a 19 year old with "serious" issues, uses Facebook to bemoan his life and all of the things that he feels the world is down on him about.
This isn't once in a blue moon this is several times a day.
Personally I'd love to just go all psycho step mum on him and smash his phone in front of him.

At 19 I was dashing here and there with a race car team. I was making myself so sick on an overdose of Tequila that I would rethink my thoughts on alcohol for a decade (yes I was THAT sick!). I was living out of home and having the time of my teenage life.

Well it seems these days its all about sitting in your bedroom navel gazing and getting online on your I phone to "vent" (his words not mine) to the world at large about how rotten you feel.

To him, to all of his facebook whinging clones I say - Get over it. Life is out there to be lived.