I was supposed to go to a funeral today but when I got up this morning I just didn’t have it in me to go. Mr P was going so I said he could represent our family. I seem to be reaching some kind of depressing events threshold. They were all going out drinking afterwards at one of the shittier local hotels 😬 definitely count me out, would rather stay home than deal with drunken people today. Especially people who had already started squabbling about money barely a day after she died. I felt a bit guilty though, especially seeing as I’d taken the day off work to go, so I had a go at repairing the dishwasher and succeeded! Am kind of enjoying having a day off that’s not a public holiday.
G’day all. So on top of everything that’s going on, a good friend of mine died yesterday. She’d had a lifelong battle with illness and it finally beat her. Yesterday was a day of tears, but today I just felt flat. The kids get it (mum’s sad) and let me wallow in bed a bit more than usual. Watched a movie, not sure why, called Arrival (on Netflix). Mostly was pretty boring until the last half hour or so where it suddenly changed gear and was mind-blowing. Tonight I’m going to watch *3 body problem.*Now to make pizza and eat leftover pasta that I made into a bake.
Here’s to the end of a pretty ordinary week. Mr P had to give bone marrow sample and has had appointment at Peter Mac. We’re waiting to find out if he has blood cancer, leukaemia or whatever they call it now. Elder minipeeler is still having major issues with anxiety and school refusal. My MIL offered to pay for him to go to a private school she thinks would be better for him… would’ve been nice to offer that last year, when I was having to enrol him in the only (really big) public school in our catchment and I was saying that I didn’t have a good feeling about it, that I felt that there’d be problems for him given the issues he’d had in the past, but had no choice financially. I was equally anxious and bummed out about it and she knew that back then. Now she wants to sweep in with her money and save the day, by uprooting him and plonking him into a new school‽ I feel bad for being ungrateful. Miniest is going through a very testing rebellious and wilful stage. I’m trying to give her as much of myself as I can and my patience, as she is jealous of Elder and her dad being home all the time, which is perfectly understandable. She is academically gifted but puts in a bare minimum of effort and is wasting her awesome potential and it’s hugely frustrating, but she doesn’t give a shit. I am feeling older and more tired in my body and it’s depressing. I’ve been bingeing dystopian shows on Netflix and find them comfortingly awful. I gave up on the “comedy” category… maybe Americans just laugh at different stuff, but I found little humour there. Thankyou for reading my grumbles.
Watched 4 corners about the school refusal last night and it resonated very strongly with me. Especially the lady who said, “If tough love worked my kid would be at school.” The parents who accused their kids of being lazy, who opened the curtains and pulled the blankets off their kids, who’ve shouted and tried to push and push… yeah I’ve done some bad parenting in the past and I’m not proud. I had to question where this was coming from within me (thanks mum and dad!) and be flexible as a parent and completely change strategies.
I’ve scheduled a meeting with Elder’s school later this week to develop a plan to get him back to school, starting with a reduced hours timetable. It’ll have to accommodate his fortnightly sessions. I’ll be asking for extra tutoring for him to help him get up to speed. He’s basically missed the whole year at this point. Whatever they can offer, I’m going to push for, and more. The squeaky wheel gets the grease!
I’ve seen lichen like this on cars in my neighbourhood which are permanently parked in the shade. One’s parked under a tree on the lawn of a house around the corner from me. Mr P says he knows the family, and that the car has rarely moved in 20 or 30 years.
That’s a perfectly reasonable question, and the answers are many. It was the house she and dad bought together, and after he suddenly and unexpectedly died, she was really attached to anything which held her memories of him. They had been active in volunteering in the area and had many friends and a strong connection to it, and she just didn’t want to move anywhere more affordable where she didn’t know anybody and had to “start again”. She had an extensive garden which was her main hobby and which gave her an enormous amount of pleasure, and she was loathe to give it up (it was admired by local people and when she died, people came to take photos of it). Mum had Parkinson’s disease at the end, and found mobility a challenge, so the house was easy to modify for her increasing disability. The truth also was that the house itself was kinda crappy and wasn’t actually worth very much and she wouldn’t have gotten much more than it cost for a unit in the area at the time (prices for units in that area were starting to get a bit crazy). After dad died she got all morbid and was talking as though she was going to die soon too, even though she outlived him by about 20 years lol. I guess she thought, why go to the trouble of moving when I’m just going to die anyway? I hope my answer hasn’t bored you with rambling on, my apologies if it has.
I think using your super as a deposit for a house is a terrible idea because you could basically end up like my mum: an elderly homeowner having to pay to maintain and repair an ageing home and no income other than the pension to live on. She’s long gone now, but I’ll never forget how hard it was for her, and how she had to borrow money from a friend to replace the old heater that broke and couldn’t be fixed. Every pension day it was decision time, what to pay and what to delay. Meanwhile the house was slowly falling into disrepair.
TitleHave struggled all year with getting elder minipeeler to school. Have realised he is suffering from depression which needs treatment, so an appointment with GP has been made. He just isn’t motivated at all, and recently has just seemed really sad and can’t explain/doesn’t know why. Sometimes he lashes out in anger and frustration and is immediately regretful and even sadder. He had therapy last year for anxiety and it looks like we’re going to go down that path again. Mr P can see it too and thankfully agrees, or I’d have a battle there (Mr P is famously anti therapists after bad experiences when he was younger. Was sent to The Melbourne Clinic and almost was given shock treatment, so it’s understandable). Mr P is taking him to the appointment. Now I have to go to work and carry on when I feel like a shattered husk. However I’m feeling I tell myself it’s worse for him. Fingers crossed for my boy today.
Sparrows. An introduced species I think. There used to be heaps of them around, almost a plague of them when I was a kid, but I don’t see anywhere near those numbers anymore. And yes, they are cute! They love small seeds.
Proud of myself! I’ve been craving fish & chips, but it’s getting to the stage where it’s costing over $100 for the five of us! And sometimes it’s not that great. So after work I bought some fish from the local market. I bought school shark because it seemed like a good price and gave me sufficient quantity to have a couple of attempts if I messed up, but everyone loved it! It was a huge success! I’ve always been a bit scared to do it because I’m not 100% on what to do and was afraid I’d screw it up. So I looked up wikiHow, lol. My chips were tasty, the fish was delish and it cost me $20, which is a massive saving. This is a big thing for me!
Thankyou to those who’ve asked after me, I truly appreciate it! Life’s been a bit meh for me lately. I’m still trying to exercise but this last couple of weeks I seem to be skipping every second day. After my birthday I got a bit depressed and annoyed with life. Every year, ever birthday reminds me of how I’ve got less and less time left with my kids, and worrying if I’m giving them all the life skills they’ll need. I’m working so hard and trying to be frugal without being stingy and lecturing everyone in the house about wasting things. I’ve been a real killjoy lately. I’m tired a lot of the time, and apart from commenting on the odd post here and there I’ve refrained from posting daily because mood, menopause, money, and disappointment at myself for failing to exercise daily as I intended. I figured everyone’s going through similar stuff (except maybe the menopause!) so what I’m feeling isn’t special so I haven’t talked about it. It’s been hard to find joy in life at times. I also need to seriously declutter the flat, which I’ve attempted a few times over the last couple of weeks but when I get home it all seems to be still there, plus some more. It just seems to be such an effort to be positive in my life and inspiring for my kids. Christmas is coming, I have an unpaid fortnight off over Christmas & New Year (yay casual work), Elder Minipeeler is attending high school for the first time next year and there are expenses with that… I just don’t know how I’m going to manage it all, everything is getting so expensive. I’m really worried and burying myself in work and getting sick of saying “No we can’t do X on the weekend because I’m worried that if I spend $ on that I won’t have money for the other things.” Mr Peeler is focused on trying to get his disability pension and little else. I guess I have to make more of an effort to appreciate the good things, even though the good things in life don’t seem to outweigh the negatives right now. I occasionally just get sick of having to make the effort and having to force myself to be positive; when it doesn’t come naturally and everything gets me down it’s just a pain in the arse, and so am I. Why does it take so much effort? Keep trying woman! 💪 Thankyou for bearing with me, grumpy old grizzly bear that I am.
Got the news from the bosses yesterday that, due to business being so quiet, they’ve made the decision to close the factory on Fridays. This is hopefully a temporary measure until things pick up again later in the year, as they usually do before Christmas. Some of our wholesale customers have gone bust and some looking like they’re barely hanging on. So it’s a drop in pay for me but will give me a weekday at home to get the shit done that’s just not being done atm. I’m trying to see it as an opportunity rather than a problem. Also I sat down with the fam last night and made a list of our monthly expenses and discussed what could be cut. Lifestyle creep is a thing and I’ve had to explain to them that we’re just gonna have to suck it up for a bit. The kids agreed to think carefully and talk with each other about how likely I am to say yes to a thing before they ask me for something. Mr Peeler was told don’t even think about it!
On the plus side, my bus driver looks like Jimmy Giggle.
Picture of a sign in my kitchen which reads, “GOOD MUMS have sticky floors, Messy kitchens, Piles of laundry, dirty ovens and HAPPY KIDS”
Mr Peeler cracked the shits about how the kitchen was untidy. Admittedly I didn’t clean up very well yesterday, I felt fucking awful and it was an effort to drag myself through any task. I reminded him that he has made plenty of mess in the past week and cleaned none of it. He countered that he was sick. I reminded him I was too, and am still recovering! But only people with main character syndrome are allowed clemency for illness😒 Anyway, to cut a long story short (and a lot of futile self defence type arguing and bullshit out) I have this sign in my kitchen. After a similar argument many years ago, I left the house and went for a walk. I found myself in the op shop around the corner from my house. I walked into the store and there it was, this sign, perched atop a collection of kitchen bric-a-brac. It was literally the first thing my eyes saw when I entered the store. I shit you not, I swear on both my parents graves, there was a soft shaft of light from a high window that fell across some of the kitchen stuff, including this sign. It was so freaky! It was like, a sign but also a sign. You know, a sign sign. Of course I bought it, took it home and placed it in a prominent part of the kitchen, where it remains to this day. Mr Peeler later admitted he’d been a total dick. As he always does. Having the impulse control of a 5yo is not easy for a 60+yo boomer. He does not seem to be able to stop those first words from coming out, and having been in too many relationships where I didn’t adequately stand up for myself if at all, I am shockingly defensive and do not back down in an argument.
Additional thoughts: I’ve spent altogether too much time in pubs, bars and taverns, done a frightening amount of drinking, and been in the position where it’s late at night and the talk has turned personal. Older men often speak of their mothers, especially after a recent bereavement. I’ve never once in my whole life heard a man say, “my mum was a good lady but I wish she’d cleaned the oven a bit more often,” or “I wish mum had vacuumed more often.” They do say things like, “my mother never held me,” “my mother never told me she loved me,” “my mother was really cold to me my whole life and I never knew why,” “my mother put dad first and us kids came a long way second.” Because these are the things, at the end of the night, at the end of life itself, that really fucking hurt.
DAY 30 COMPLETED! 🎉🎊 The first time in my whole life I have stuck to a daily exercise regimen! I’m feeling pretty chuffed right now. The only question for me now is what to do next! Should I move on to the intermediate level? Do something different? Decisions decisions!
Day 29 of exercises completed. I’ve got one day to go before I’ve completed the program! Woo! I’ve never stuck at any exercise program for this long in my whole life before, and I have you folks to thank for your ongoing encouragement and support! Now I’ve got to take a look at what my next step is…
Good. That ad has been pissing me off when I hear it at work. It’s like, thanks for charging people who have little choice (eg. renters) more for gas so you can use that money to pay for ads to bullshit us about how gas is green and great. Fuck you, gas companies!
Thankyou all for your responses yesterday, they were too many and varied in nature to respond to individually in the detail I would have liked to give, but thankyou for taking the time and for your support.
I arrived home last night to be greeted by a very humbled, remorseful and apologetic Mr Peeler. The fine gave him a big shock, and when I saw it I could see why. A good mate of his had ripped into him about it before I got home, saying 2 kmph more and he would have lost his licence and gotten an $800 fine… and then I probably would have pretty understandable grounds for a separation.
He has been seeing a psychologist about his depression & anxiety, which he was considering discontinuing due to the emotions it was dredging up. It was on the way home from one of these sessions that the speeding occurred. At my insistence he will continue the therapy and discuss what has happened and talk more productively about strategies to manage those feelings, but take time out after the session and sit in the park or take a walk before he gets behind the wheel, take time to decompress.
Today he will arrange for installments to be taken out of his fortnightly money, and I made it clear that, given all the other support ihave already given I am drawing the line very firmly on this one.
I also made it clear how disgusted I was about the drink before picking up the kids, and he knew given the circumstances there was no point arguing. The friend he visited is a flagrant alcoholic with a death wish, and he can visit that person after he’s dropped the kids at home or on the weekend, but absolutely not during the day. He also needs to discuss this with the therapist. Visiting this guy is like a trap, everyone ends up drinking there. It’s why I don’t visit him anymore either, and I used to count him as a friend.
Finally, I asked if he felt I was being unreasonable in any of this, and he said no. I then told him that, given he agreed its fair and reasonable, if any of these things are not done, then I will end the relationship. Let’s see how it goes.
Oh by the way I did my exercises, day 26 and I think 9 or 10 of tummy, I lost track. And I’m still off the grog. Have a lovely day everyone!
Ugh. Mr Peeler has yet another speeding fine. I pay his rego, insurance, give him petrol money each week so he can at least pick up the kids from school, I paid his last (how many!) fines because he didn’t even ring up to arrange instalments… I just can’t even. I get that he’s dyslexic etc. But fucking hell! I’m not paying this one, fuck it. I’m working hard and trying to save so we can have things and he’s just pissing around. The other day he was late picking up the kids because he just “popped in” to a mate’s place in the afternoon and “had a whiskey,” then found himself stuck in traffic. Wtf is he even doing drinking before picking up the kids?! I’m fucking relying on this fuck!
Just getting it out of me before I get home or it’ll come out in an angry rush which will in turn make him angry, defensive or both, and the kids will be right there exposed to it all. Thanks for listening.
He closed so many schools in my area, and now with a booming population the existing schools are massively over enrolled and struggling. Fuck you Jeff.
Day 9 of 30 day exercise plan. It’s working! I looked in the mirror this morning and noticed subtle changes in my body which are really encouraging and positive. I’m so happy! I can’t wait to tell my manager at work. She partly prompted me to start thinking about it in the first place. She had to do a test where you run on a treadmill for 10mins while they monitor your heart (pressure test). While I’m physically strong (lifting and carrying 20kg sacks of potatoes will do that to ya) I thought, “Could I run on a treadmill for 10mins? I’m strong but I’m not cardio fit at all.” Then I started thinking, “I’ll be 50 this year, you gotta do something about it. Do something for yourself. You’re overweight, just like your parents were, and they did nothing about it and died!” Sorry for the morning dramatics, but I didn’t want to end up like that.
I’ve decided, in my 50th year on the planet, to do something about getting fitter. I’m fit enough to do my manual labouring type job but not as fit as I’d like to be. I work in food manufacturing, which has been better for the wallet than the waistline! I’m not really one for going to the gym and I have trouble sticking with things like exercise routines. So this morning I downloaded a coaching app and started with a beginner’s workout. It turned out to be a good place to start. I wasn’t absolutely stuffed by the end of it but I definitely felt like I’d done some exercise! I’m posting about this to keep myself accountable. Hopefully I’ll be less likely to slack off!
Daily discussion thread: ☔☂🌂Fursday, May 30, 2024
It’s going to rain. Take a brolly.
Daily discussion thread: 🥔💎 Sunday, May 19, 2024
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I didn't know car bodies could be viable habitats. (aussie.zone)
Do you think that might be heritage lichen?
Daily discussion thread: 🚀 Saturday, April 27, 2024
Draining entire superannuation savings wouldn’t cover most young couples’ home deposits, research finds (www.theguardian.com)
Research by the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia casts doubt on the Coalition’s plan
Daily Discussion Thread: 🏖 Tues 27 Feb 2024
Morning all ☀
What type of birdies are these? (aussie.zone)
They’re so tiny and cute 🥺...
Daily Discussion Thread: 🧦 Mon 22 Jan 2024
Confucius say butcher who back into meat grinder get a little behind in his orders. 🍑
[Satire] - People who build wind turbines at sea do not care if whales live or die. Monsters! | First Dog on the Moon (www.theguardian.com)
Daily Discussion Thread: Sat 04 Nov 2023
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Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 25 Jul 2023
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Daily Discussion Thread: Mon 24 Jul 2023
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Gas lobby forced to pull ad for misleading viewers over “50 pct cleaner” claims (reneweconomy.com.au)
An advertisement by Australia’s gas lobby has been taken off the airwaves after it was found to mislead viewers with environmental claims....
Daily Discussion Thread: Fri 21 Jul 2023
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Daily Discussion Thread: Thu 20 Jul 2023
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Jeff Kennett proposes pay cuts for public servants working from home (www.abc.net.au)
Would you take a pay cut to work from home?...
Daily Random Thread: Monday 3rd July 2023 Waiting for Botot edition
A thread to get us through until the Bot army strikes.
Daily Thread : Sunday 25th June 2023
Happy Sunday everyone! Sending good vibes to each and every one of you.
Daily Thread: TGIFriday 23 June 2023 Edition
This is DJ G bringing you all the good beats to get you through this day...