Christmas Eve

1- Teddy attacking wrapping paper.  2- Our stockings in a row.  3- Mama's stocking that sisterB__ made her.  4-  Tree that I made from a branch.  5- Tree and brown paper packages tied up with wool.  6- Garland.  7- Words of love.  8- Doily dove garland.  9- Lovely Doily Doves.  10- Mama & her youngest discuss marshmallow & jube placement.  11-  Gingerbread House!! 12-  Salad for dinner, before day of feasting! 13- Teddy sniffs out the Tree.  14-  Teddy eats the tree.

It's home ...

... aka thoughts born from the Myrtle & Eunice theme (Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home) from Pip's My Place and Yours game..

aka:  I did find an item that meant home - but it took a while, and this was my thought process..
aka:  I have so many overdue librarybooks blog posts, damn laptop breaking!

It’s the citrus smell of the leaves from the gum tree outside the terrace I lived in during first year. It’s the smell of the ash leaves, fallen from their trees and laying ankle deep and burning red on the road, we wade through them walking up the hill on the way home from high school. It’s a neighbour's frangipani overpowered by the rubbish from the deli’s bins out in the lane way, greeting me at the front door. It’s N__'s pillow warm, from his imprint, stolen from his side of the bed to hold while he went off to the gym.

It’s the noise of jumbos flying into Sydney Airport, swooping oh so low over our roof. It’s the sound of my sisters singing; Cher in the car while sisterS__ drives us to civic; Evita; Joseph & the Technicolour Dreamcoat; Les Mis; times-tables songs; Christmas carols by the piano; Beyonce while doing the dishes.. It’s O__ in the town house opposite playing She's a Maniac loudly across the spring air in 1997. It’s Cherish in A__’s pink Torana, all 5 of us laughing our heads off on the way to college. It was B__ on the answering machine late that night when I was just 18, cooling the heat of the summer with his tired far away happy voice.

It’s Mama’s handwriting – perfect copperplate, my Dad’s scrawl, my sister's loops and flurries. It’s lovelyS__'s long fingers climbing over his guitar strings, playing the blues so damn well it makes a girl happy.

It’s the way a door handle turns, the knack to turning the key in the lock, knowing just how hard to hit the second draw down in the kitchen with your hip so it shuts. It’s the crunch under foot of the gravel driveway. It’s the blinding sun reflecting off the white painted Surry Hills terrace while you climb the steps to the door.  It's the way he kisses me, the way I tuck my hand round his arm when we walk down the street.

It’s the view of the city and the powerlines from my bed. It’s the light on top of Mount Ainslie flashing through my bed room window. It’s the sunlight reflected off the pool dancing on the kitchen roof. It’s Beth Orton in the back ground while I read the paper on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Its Grandma’s prize winning crochet doleys, face washers, and handtowels, bits of beautiful old fashioned craft that we all took for granted.
It’s the taste of Mama’s Lasagne.

It’s me. Every where I have lived, all sixteen houses, all thirty one + flatmates, all four lovers, I am the only constant, and I am all I need to be at home.
(Well me and the strength of my sisters & Mama.)

what's hot + what's not - 17 Dec

Hot things...

• Reading Georgette Hyer books and realising that your speech is starting to become peppered with words such as dastardly, fagged, trifle foxed and dicked in the nob.*
• Watching sisterB__'s cat Teddy play with wrapping paper and ribbons while we organise presents to be sent to the overseas sisters.
• Day dreaming at bus stops.
• my sisterB__ is brave and great and fun and a top flatmate.
• Wonderful pictures of other bloggers Christmas plans and happy children and wonderful decorations.
• Get to see wonderfulA__ this weekend as she is up from Canberra for a visit.
• Get to see N__ and O__ for new years..

Not things...

• Feeling super tired quite a lot.
• Having a fight. (Even though it wasn't that bad, its still not a hot thing!)
• My new laptop is broken and I have v limited 'net access and cannot comment on blogs and share my joy and thanks for other people's sharing.
• Sending presents to overseas sisters quite late, so they probably won't be there by Christmas even though paid for expensive air-mail-super-fast-option.
• Price of air-mail-super-fast-option overseas package posting.
• Get to see N__ and O__ for new years.. But in Canberra!!
• Hmm, tiredness makes me grumpy and that is a lot of nots.

Hot and Nots brought to you by the very nice blog Loobylu and her friends who play along.

*May not have actually used dicked in the nob, however wish too asap.  May need to have another fight!

The story of when I bought an expensive electronic good and I cried.

Last night I bought an expensive electronic good and I cried.
I cried cos in the car on the way home from lashoppingmall lovely S__ and I had a fight.

I got him to come with me to help me pick a TV, we had been discussing how I would need to get one since when we broke up, and I had helped him go shopping for house stuff and you know, it was a plan. But he obviously wanted to be some place else..

I was disturbing his evening off but still, if he didn't want to be there he should just say.

Then I said a dumb thing that was meant to be funny but wasn't but he took far too much offence at and then said a thing to me and then I said another thing to him and then I got angry cos he says far more inappropriate things to me all the time and I don't get mad and how dare he say that and I let you stay in my damn house for months and yell yell yell.

He carried the TV inside and left and I followed him to his car and stood there being angry at him and him at me and then I cried and he drove off and then I went inside and then I sat at the kitchen table and cried.

I cried because it is horrid fighting. I cried because I have not lost control for a while and I could feel it (it is the uncontrollable emotion demon creature of course) creeping its long spindly fingers inside my mind while I stood beside the car outside my house spitting words at lovelyS__.
Oh, I hate those fingers. If they pry me open, I am afraid of ending up back in bed to hide from the world in my blue sheets. I am afraid of crying till I can't breathe and I have another panic attack..  And then another one.

sisterB__ came home from pilates and she listened and got angry at lovelyS__ on my behalk in a myopic sister way and said all the right things and I tried to call him but he texted and said not yet.

I calmed down.

I learnt 'tis ok to let the emotion in sometimes. To not be afraid of giving in to the crying - sometimes its ok to let it out and it doesn't mean it will end with me having a panic attack.

Ever since I stopped taking the anti-depressants I have been worried about feelings. I am still trying to keep things even. Avoiding social things where I might get nervous, deliberately apologising even when I don't want to just to so as to keep the peace.  ...
 ...  In fact I felt it would be more stressful for me demanding that lovelyS__ leave then not, (and he was all afraid of moving into a share house which as I predicted he loves. Sigh. I know everything.) and in part I think that is why I let him stay for 4 months after we broke up. Also I do like the boy.

I am a doormat to my own fear of losing control and spiralling into depression and bluesheets.

But every time I am pushed to what I feel is an edge - it turns out ok. I am ok.
For this I am proud.

Oh and lovelyS__ and I are ok I think.  We talked and it seemed fine, and I don;t think he thinks I am a crazy freak who he hates and will never speak to again, so take that spindly fingers of doubt and panic and hate.  Take that.

what's hot + what's not - 9th Dec

Hot things…

• sisterB__ has moved into the-flat-above-the-deli, she brought this sleepy creature with her :::
• I am back to blogging (via memes, but still, hello!)
• Lovely dinners with char grilled vegetables, home made yogurt cheese and lovely girls.
• My new bed!  It is pretty and makes me feel like a sleepy princess.
• All the things we bought from Ikea have been built, and it is fun to have new shiny furniture items!
• Summer/Christmas feelings in the air.
• Mama comes to visit on the 21st.
• Eating rice paper rolls - mint, poached chicken, crips vegetables, soft wrapping = yum!

Not things…

• Visit to Canberra two weekends ago was horrid, (!) with bad interactions with my Dad and no time to see friends or go to see a certain very lovely lady's pictures.
• Building Ikea things - A red Billy, a brown Benno, 8 damn Kassett boxes, 2 Frosta stools, One PS Cabinet, one Lillesand bed - and feeling guilty for buying mass produced brand new, not very sustainable furniture..  Sorry Salvo's on Princes Hwy..
• Have not finished making sisterI__'s Christmas present (the one that needs to go to Germany!) Have not even thought of something for sisterS__'s Christmas present (the one that needs to go to London.) Have not sent cards.  Have not made cookies.  Have not sewn Christmas garlands. Cannot decide what to cook for the big day..  Oh dear!

Weekly therapy and celebration session courtesy of lovely loobylu.

My Place and Yours - That's Nice, That's Different, That's Unusual

On Right - Little alcove in hallway. You may have met the dancing inhabitants way back when.

 

 

On Left - Here is the fuse box for the house, located to the right of the mantelpiece in my bedroom.    Industrial wall art  ...

  

On Above - And in the lounge room, over by the window is a completely inexplicable, but very securely-attached-to-wall doorbell sounder and button.. No idea what that is doing there at all, and it is impossible to remove.  Odd.

Thanks to The WildThing meetmeatmikes and to littlesuitcase for a top theme

da da dah don't you, forget about me

I am having an Ally Sheedy moment, well really an Allison Reynolds moment.  You know, in Breakfast Club, where she looks up and says that her home life is unsatisfying.
Anyway, thats how I feel.  Not about home though.
Many things, Canberra visit was not fun (to say the least) and then when I got back on Sunday night all I wanted to do was watch Glee and relax and the TV had gone with lovelyS__ and the net was not working so I could not watch online and I went to bed all angry and frustrated and woke up the same way..  Not a good Mondaymorning moment.

I am winding wool round a bit of fallen gum tree to make a Christmas tree and I am going to watch a dvd.  Maybe something Jane Austin related..  That will improve things.

Posts that actually mean something will resume soon.  Probably in a day or so.  Between then I have lovelyS__'s Birthday and a planned trip to Ikea (yesyes-cheap bookcases I hear your call..) and sisterB__ moving in and the carpets need to be cleaned and how much does that cost anyway?

Oh and I am kinda enjoying my week as a spinster, I went shopping tonight until 9pm and then I ate fruit for dinner.  This morning I left my undies on the bathroom floor and didn't have to worry about everyone else being grossed out.

Oh and laMall is full of clothes I used to wear when I was 12/13 - I laughed out loud at a spotty skirt I saw in Sportsgirl's window.  Oh dear, I am a member of the spotted skirt fan-club normally, just this one looked exactly like one I wore to a grade 5/6 dance where we all run round singing Cream by Prince, (needless to say completely oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics, it was just in the top 10 at the time.)

Oh and enough babble.