It's Saturday

My goodness two posts in two days. I was playing with my sewing machine last night, can I just tell, I LOVE MY MACHINE!!!! Any way I was playing with my machine last night. I have a picture of my late sister and it is one I love. I took a line drawing of it, copied it onto Press and Seal then followed the lines to "draw and paint" in thread. Now this is a first attempt and by no means is it perfect but, then I am my own worst critic, tell me what you think....

I just realised the date today. It is a bit of an anniversary for me, two years since I stopped drinking. No black outs, no hangovers, feeling better. Life is good.

Heavy Stuff !!!!

I had blood tests Christmas eve. I was donating blood every 3 months and at my last donation my haemoglobin had dropped.. Nothing to alarming just down from my previous level. After a further finger prick test I noted it to be lower still.

Thought I would take my self off to the Drs and mention this. "MMMM, that not good", she says. "Off you go, blood tests my dear and then we will follow it up, probably nothing."

Back to the Drs Tuesday, results back in. Nothing sinister, but my Iron level is 9 should be at least a min of 15. So now I have started a course of iron injections. Twice weekly, for 5 weeks. I am hoping this will do the trick. I have been so tired since before Christmas, I would lay down with the kids to talk to them and 3 hrs later I would wake up. I'm having broken nights, not sleeping well. I would wake in the morning, be back in bed 2 hrs later to have another sleep. Such a good Mum I am.

I had my first injection yesterday, slept fairly well last night, still broken but when I woke this morning I felt more refreshed than I have for a long time. I even managed to stay awake all day, even went up to Joondalup with the kids to visit my Mum and Dad.

I will take it easy for a little while, but hopefully things will start on the up. I have even managed to start a new project...I started to quilt it last night...will get on with the reat of it tonight.

Happy New Year...bring it on 09

Happy New Year my friends.

I managed to finished my Applewood 2008 BOM, Pinwheels and Posies. I finished sewing the binding on Tuesday night. I am proud to have actually finished at least one UFO after the fall in mood I endured over the last few months.

Well I must have blinked. Christmas is gone. Today is January 1. Zach is now 10 and we are on the down hill slide towards our holiday, 5 mths, 2 weeks. NO I'm not counting at all!!! We need to get ourselves organised to get a loan for our spending money. Will concentrate on it after I get back to work, I am having January off work to be with the kids during the school hols.

We are in the middle of decorating and swapping the children's rooms over. But my Lord, the mess in the rooms. We need a dingo to dig it all out, and the patching that is required, well as you can see we have our work cut out.

When the patching is finished in the "blue" room Dave will paint it for Sarah and she can finally have a bedroom back. At the moment she is sleeping on the floor in our room or Zach's room and all her furniture and belongings are in our sitting area.

I set out today to paint the little bookshelf so it could go back into his bedroom. The kids wanted to help, yes well........They soon got bored of painting the wood:

I love kids!!! We are now sitting down watching a movie. Nice quiet family time.

1 week. A long 7 days, but 7 days all the same

1 week. That is how long it has been. 1 week, 7 tablets, support, understanding and self forgiveness. How much is under rated I wonder. Not by me. My flu symptoms are gone. I am still tired but working on beating that!! Sleep is a wonderful ally.

I am feeling so much better. I can smile, I feel calm and capable of coping. I was still tense on the weekend..had trouble coping with a family gathering, but it was with all of my family that understand.

I now realise that I was drowning more that I gave myself to admit. But who of us like to admit fault? Hey I have grown up with a Dad who is "PERFECT and WONDERFUL" or so he told any one who asked how he was....so wasn't I supposed to be the same?

I realise, NO WAY!!! But I can tell people I am great and good and lovely!!!! Like father, like daughter! Stiff upper lip, that is what I perceived on how I was supposed to be. Huh. Laugh at that one, I think not. Day by day I am just being me, what ever shape that takes.

I had my TKD grading last night. I am now a Blue belt. That in itself is no task to be undertaken lightly....kicking, punching, patterns, self defence, ending up on the floor!!! I have been going for 12 months now. To say that I am proud of myself is an understatement. Even when I was drowning I kept going. I have to admit I had stopped enjoying it and was finding it a chore. There is fun back in TKD now, already, even after this short period.

I managed to finish one project last month: This is a small wall hanging of a snow scene...the snow was french knots but I decided to use seed beads for the glitter effect. I sent it to the US for our friend Lisa and Tom for their Christmas gift.

Speaking of the US, we booked and paid for the tickets two weeks ago. So now we have tickets, travel insurance but no spending money or accommodation! We will book the hotels in the new year. Try to save up as much as we can for that. Hoping the US $$ gains some ground as the current exchange rate hurts, especially when it was not that long ago that it was nearly $ for $.

For my friends I thank them for being there no matter how silent. I am sorry if I caused any hurt for the worry that some have felt, but this was a way for me to expres myself, something I have not done for a long time. It was a way to let out my hurt, I have kept things bottled up, no wonder I am a little nutty, but then again who among us isn't slightly on the twisted side!!

Honest depression

So very tired, fragile, on edge. My body whilst aching from the flu, has felt like it was buzzing, shaking internally. Not the visible sort of shaking when you are cold or in shock but the sort where you are over alert, the smallest thing could make you jump or frighten you or worse produce the sot of tears that would never stop. The tears that produce the shoulder hunched body sobbing.

My mood in short…fucked. I don’t want to keep existing like this. I am not living I am just going the false motions of being day to day. I am living a charade that begets my inner sorrow and misery. I have no interest in anything. I pretend, don’t get me wrong, but going through the motions of doing things that normally fill me with joy and happiness are empty and meaningless. The children help me in retaining this façade that I have kept up. But I am no actor but people see behind this veiled curtain that I try to keep up. It is a lot easier just talking to people, that I know.

But how can you talk to people when you don’t even know your self that you are slipping until you have started to slide that little to fast to stop your self easily

I have found solace and comfort in my friends and family. Their tolerance for my flatness is overwhelming and I truly appreciate what they are doing by just being there.

I have found that my tolerance with my general health is extremely decreased leaving me more susceptible to this virus that I have caught. But I also believe that my body is sick, my blackness has more control over me than I thought. I am not allowing it to take control fully, but it is taking control. My inner strength, I feel is at an all time low. But….I have control because I have the power to stop this. My power comes from my chemical saviour of antidepressants.

It is sad that I have slipped down to this level. I believe that I did have control over this not that long ago, but bit by bit it has regained its hold over me, I feel the strength of its embrace is some what suffocating. I am wanting to throw of the shackles of this demon, turn around punch it in its face and kick it where the sun don’t shine!!!

Today I have done myself a justice in writing this down, I have been honest. Honesty is a hard thing to bring forward, especially when you are exposing ones self.

We're all going on a summer holiday...

Wow over a month since I posted. I have been struggling with keeping my head above water, especially around my cycle. I went to the Dr in an absolute mess, and I am now trying a medication for two weeks during the cycle while I am ovulating. She thinks I have PMDD. Think PMS but with dynamite added. My depressive symptoms were really bad, but only for those two weeks. The other two weeks of the month I am fine.

I apologised to Miss S the other day for yelling and growling, saying I did not mean to take it out on her...I get back thats' ok Mum I'm used to it. OUCH. Just twist and drive that knife a little deeper into my scarred heart. There was no malice there on her behalf but boy did that hurt. I can't keep living like this, nor can the family.

I have not even been able to get motivated to use the sewing machine or do any of my craft...I should have heard the alarm bells then.

On the bright side of life, I paid for our travel insurance today, the plane tickets will be next week.....so our big holiday is going ahead....finally, it is becoming real.

Now if the kids would just stop costing us a small fortune with their teeth. Sarah had to have 3 teeth out this week. Zach needs to have 5 teeth out soon, and next year the will both have to have palate spreaders in to help re size their palates to fit the adult teeth in........heck either we are going to have to sell the kids to pay for it or our holiday loan is going to have to include $$$ for the orthodontist.

Still going

October another month of being medication free. I am still wary of how thing are going. Mood wise I am OK, no real great downs, the odd bad day, I think I am waiting for the crash, it has happened so many other times that I am kind of expecting it, which I know is the wrong attitude. It is so easy to condition yourself into a certain thinking pattern. I am seeing a therapist, psychologist to support the drug free me. That is helping but bugger me they expect you to look into your self so that we can decipher thought process and patterns. That is scary. I question myself as a parent, as a wife and as an individual. I wonder where my frustration and anger and anguish comes from? There are no bells and whistles for parent hood and marriage.

The holiday plans are still underway. All 4 passports are in now. We are getting quotes then we can book the flights. Just need to save up the money it all. Does not help spending $700 on car service and brakes, $150+ on my therapy sessions (if I did retail therapy for that amount of money each week I would have a new entire wardrobe!!) Sarah needs extraction of teeth that is going to be $++ Good thing Dave and I both work hard, just need to curtail the spending!