November has really delivered a whole load of crap sandwiches to my door, and I have reached my personal pinnacle. In the last six weeks I have completely drained my once healthy looking holiday savings account to pay bills, most of them doctors bills. And then today, just to really put some extra crap into the final day of the month, my car broke down in the middle of an intersection, just spluttered to a stop. Poor Penelope is now at my mechanic's awaiting repairs that appear to be linked to my battery that exploded a few months back, turns out all of that rogue battery acid was none too good for my engine. Not only do I have to await Penelope's return, but I also have to await another dreaded bill of unknown proportions. All of my hard saved non-smoking money has all just gone....poof! And I have nothing joyful to show for it whatsoever. 
​God only knows what I am going to pay this latest hiccup it with. Lucky for us, our mechanic is fabulous at repairs and lousy at getting his paper work in order, so hopefully that will buy me a few weeks to work out how to wrangle the cash for this debacle.
You would think that a month that re-introduced alcohol into your life would be joyful wouldn't you? But, it has been quite the opposite really, utterly joyless would be a better description. And to top it all off, all of this insane busyness and money stress of late has had Craig and I at each others throats like a pack of wild hunting dogs, honestly it's nothing short of diabolical around here. I feel like I'm on the set of National fucking Geographic, it's all egg shells and threatening sneers and I'm over it!
I'm literally checking out mentally at the moment, and if I keep shutting down at this rate, I will be in a coma within a week. Even whiskey can't fix this funk! Come on December, bring me something good. 

I have slipped back into my square peg mode again. I am currently not running in sync with the rest of the world, I am walking to the beat of a different drum, a drum that apparently only I can hear. Those of you that know me well or visit my blog regularly would know by now that this is not an isolated experience, it happens to me from time to time.
When you start to take yourself to bed at 9pm with a bowl of ice-cream to watch Twin Peaks to escape the world, you know that things have gone beyond pre-menstrual and into the land of the totally askew. I also sat up on Friday night until 3am writing angry drunken poetry because that's the sort of weird arse shit that I do when I am like this. I don't really understand the process of this mode properly  myself so I tend to just go with it.  
I really don't know how I can best describe what it is that I am feeling. The world is just upside down for me right now. Everything and everyone is operating on a completely different frequency to me and I am struggling to find common ground and harmony with people. We aren't speaking the same language, we aren't wandering the same hallways, we aren't sharing experiences. It's that kind of thing, and it isn't new for me, I know this feeling utterly, it is not foreign and it is not that concerning to me anymore.
The trouble is that I know that other people find me downright weird when I get like this, and I don't mean to weird people out or offend them with my anti-social behaviours. I'm aware that I am odd and I totally get that it's hard for people to understand me when I am like this because this is not really 'normal' behaviour. Honestly though, I gave up on 'normal' a long time ago and settled for odd, but continuously thinking you're odd is not conducive to self-repairing and moving on from these states, so I try not to linger in those thoughts for too long. I think that everyone feels out of touch at times, I just seem to do it more than other people, but I could also be wrong about that. 
Anyway, in spite of my 'other page' antics, life doesn't just stop because I am having a minor malfunction, it keeps on going, and at this time of the year it is going mighty strong! Only days until December and I have already made a dent in my Christmas shopping which is great and I have even dragged out the Christmas decorations in an attempt to lift my spirits and spread some cheer. If only we could stay away from the medical specialists for a few weeks, the doctors bills are killing me! Between Seth's leg fiasco, my visit to the vagina whisperer (Ob-Gyn), Seth's nose specialist and Craig's wisdom teeth (which are coming out on Thursday) I am flat broke. Broke is not a good place to be when Christmas is only 28 days away, hopefully people aren't expecting too much for Christmas from us this year, because they will be bitterly disappointed if they do. 
I am looking forward to a nice calm Christmas this year, I am hoping that I have spread enough good karma around throughout the year to cash in over the Summer so that I can have a nice restful break. I can see it now - just me, the sunshine, a hammock, a bottle of Jamesons and a good book, and it's less than a month away now; that's certainly something to get happy about! 
​
Took Craig, Seth and myself off to the movies in the afternoon today to improve my mood. Nothing like a bit of magic to get you smiling!  

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
Release Date: 2016
Rating: PG
Running Time: 132 mins 
​Fans of the original Harry Potter franchise are going to love this movie, just as I did. Sure there's no Voldemort or Harry, and there's only a tiny utterance of Dumbledore's name, but what there is, is tonnes of magic; and really exciting adult-based magic at that. 
Brit wizard Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) has just arrived in New York with a suitcase of magical creatures. His somewhat simplistic reason for travel turns to disarray when he accidentally becomes involved with a muggle named Jacob, the American wizarding law enforcement agency and a dark, destructive force called an Obscurus. 
The story is set in 1926, so it clearly prequels the Harry Potter juggernaut, and even though the majority of wizards are American, this still has the same charm and magical splendor that we have come to expect from J.K. Rowling. There are many new magical creatures and concepts to wrap your head around, which makes the entire experience feel fresh without being contradictory or dismissive to the previous British magical world that we have all grown so fond of.  
The cast are just fabulous, especially Eddie Redmayne who just shines as Newt Scamander and Dan Fogler who practically steals the show with his darling muggle antics as Jacob Kowalski the baker. This is a must see movie for all of the magical minded fans that followed the Potter empire from start to end. It was just so great to back in the wizarding world for a couple of hours again. 
FINAL SAY: I ain't got the brains to make this up. 
4 Chili Peppers

I recently took some tadpoles into work so that the kids could watch them transforming into frogs. The trans-formative process that a frog undergoes has always been really fascinating to me. We have managed to raise quite a few frogs in captivity at Enfield, which has always been a source of wonder and interest for Seth before we release them back into the wild. I figured that the kids at school would also enjoy seeing this process, for it is genuinely intriguing. 
The concept of transformation and things becoming "something else" has always been a major source of inspiration to great horror and sci-fi writers alike. Probably because the concept of metamorphosis is so completely strange; to us mere humans it is nothing short of utterly weird and incomprehensible, so naturally to me it is nothing short of extremely cool and greatly fascinating.  
So many well known horror archetypes go through some sort of major transformation to become their new selves; especially vampires, zombies and ghosts who have to die before they can transform. And what about the poor old werewolf? Talk about painful and regular alteration! Every time a full moon comes around they transform into a blood thirsty beast that generally kills indiscriminately - hardly a beautiful butterfly's metamorphosis is it? And everyone knows that any decent alien movie must have some form of metamorphosis, that creepy arse shit is what aliens are all about, they just love a good transformation; especially if it takes place inside of a human host! 
There is no denying that things undergoing transformation are oddly fascinating. From the real life tales of transformation in the form of the caterpillar entering the chrysalis only to hatch out days later as a butterfly; to the morbidly fascinating metamorphosis of Jeff Goldblum as he consumes his own regurgitated food and grows foreign body parts in The Fly, it is all really interesting stuff.
​It's a definitively unique process that unites real life with science fiction and fantasy in it's wonder and horror, and quite frankly, even though it is totally gross at times, I cannot deny that I really enjoy watching the process. 

As Spiderbait once sang "sunshine on the window, makes me happy, like I should be" and right now, I couldn't agree more. This weekend finally brought some much needed sunshine back into my life. I haven't ventured anywhere near town for days, and it has been bliss. Two glorious days of welcomed sunshine out at Enfield has had me pleasantly lolly-gagging around the yard engaging in various activities from gardening, collecting pine cones, harvesting veggies, tossing the frisbee and shooting hoops; not to mention practically living on the deck in my down time enjoying evening wines with Zoe who came down to stay. I even enjoyed a super long yoga session, followed by an even longer brunch on Sunday morning, that didn't end until the afternoon. 
​Zoe said that every time that she comes around, it gets more and more like a scene from  Meet the Fockers out in Enfield, and I am totally okay with that. I can't imagine the Fockers being anything other than zen about most things, and I do talk about sex as much as Roz Focker, so I guess I can see where Zoe is coming from. It isn't every day that you get to see your parents in downward facing dog is it? However, to be fair, it was our 22nd wedding anniversary on Saturday, so if we were a little more demonstrative than usual, the kids just have to live with it. We are all about embracing life and living in the moment out here these days, and it does have it's advantages, albeit wacky ones at times.
Perhaps is all just a side effect to the fact that it genuinely feels like Summer is on it's way for the first time this year, and everyone's mood and energy level has responded accordingly. It is so much easier to get motivated when the weather is better, things don't feel like such a chore. Even the menial stuff like doing the laundry isn't so bad when you catch a few rays with the hilarious magpie hatchlings out at the clothes-line.
With all of this renewed vigor, I feel really confident about the way that things will pan out over the next few weeks. It is really odd how a little sunshine can make things feel a lot more manageable, the power of a dose vitamin D certainly cannot be disputed.  

Sweet Jesus, it's that time of the year again. End of year reports are due, there's only 5 weeks of the school term left, Christmas is looming in the back ground and there's about million things to do in a microscopical amount of time. All of this has surmounted into everyone going a bit bonkers, especially the kids at school who are really milking this final count-down for all that it is worth. 
However, in spite of the intense lure that I also feel to climb aboard the douche train and blaze down the mountainside of shit fits and erratic carry on, I am just straight up refusing to do it. Yes, I'm stifling my panicky need to find around $1000 to cover all of our mounting specialist bills right now, and I am also playing zen with my Christmas list that is long enough to use as bog roll and I'm even being totally chill about all of the things that I need to finish off at work before the end of term, because you know what? Fuck it all.  It will get done, I don't know how for sure, but it will get done, it always does. And no amount of pissing and moaning is going to make it happen any faster. 
No douche train for me, no sir, not doing it. As the saying goes, I didn't come this far to only this far, and I mean it. I haven't quit smoking, detoxed and gotten up every day for the last 5 months at 5:40am to do yoga for nothing. I have earned my ticket to zen and I'm cashing it in big time.
​I can be the calm amidst the storm, I have totally got this. I am going to arrive at Christmas in just over 6 weeks time feeling relaxed and ready, that's my mantra and I am sticking to it. I am also not going to have any regrets about the way that I got there either, no moaning or whinging about the inevitable craziness of this particular time of year, it is pointless and utterly unproductive. Nope, I promised myself zen this time last year and then everything went to hell in a handbag on Christmas eve; but not this year, I'm way more prepared this year and I am going to enjoy it all, every last bit of it - even the crappy, hard and challenging bits. I got this....I have totally got this. 

It has been at least 5 years since I have willingly attended an Annual Agricultural Show in Ballarat, but this year I braved the crowds, the dub-step music, the smells of fairy floss and hot-dogs and ventured out for 'a day at the fair' with Seth. 
With a glorious 27 degree day to enjoy, the whiff of cow manure in the air and every walk of life gathered together in one place, Seth and I managed to fill in almost four hours of our public holiday freedom and spend all of our hard earned cash without much effort at all. 
One thing that I do know for sure is that the show rides are either getting way more extreme or I am just turning into a major sooky-lala in my old age. Most of the rides looked like glorified death traps to me and cost a neat $10-$15 a go - a go that lasts around 4 minutes in torturous duration. I wasn't keen at all, but Seth is such a thrill seeker that I just couldn't keep him off them. The louder the music (bangers only from what I could gather) and the more death defying, the better as far as he was concerned.
​I spent most of my time on the ground trying not to notice the rusty bolts, weathered exteriors and dodgy looking hinges on most of the contraptions, with my heart rate escalating and my pulse quickening more and more with every ride that he ventured on to. By the time I had lured him to the safety of the petting zoo my nails were chewed down to the stubs and I was substantially poorer than I was the hour before. 
​After perusing the winning local paintings, fairy cakes, sausage rolls and patchwork quilts in the arts and crafts section, we headed over to the show-bag stand to see what was on offer these days. Not much under $28 dollars I'm afraid to say, and they are still filling them all with inedible shitty lollies and plastic token crap. In spite of that fact, the humble show-bag still manages to attract kids in droves. It appears that you can pretty much put any random bunch of shit into a brightly coloured plastic bag and give it a jazzy name like "pirate loot-bag" and kids will go absolutely bonkers for it.
​Fortunately for me, Seth is no longer drawn to those types of bags anymore, he is looking for just one coveted item to take away with him from these novelty stands now, this year that item was a latex horse-head mask. Smelling like the arse end of a reject melted mannequin, with a tuft of what could be Ron Weasley's shaved off pubes attached to the back of it, this mask has given Seth (and Craig) hours of delight as they have stumbled around in it (visibility is extremely low as well- just another "high quality" perk!) scaring each other and me at various times over the long weekend. Joy of joys, what a wonderful addition to our home that thing has been!
I shouldn't complain though, because Seth had a really great time, proving that fairs and shows are truly for the young at heart, and of course the thrill seekers. In all fairness, it was a totally fine event and even the 'carnies' have upped their game a bit these days. Unlike my last visit 5 years ago, they all had shoes on this time. One thing I did notice is that they are all serious advocates of body piercing - I haven't seen that many piercing in one face since I last perused the Guinness Book of Records, but I'm not being a hater about it, just an observation, they were all very friendly individuals; with loads of bling. 
I believe that my need for agricultural and fair ground stimulation has yet again been sated. The next fair that Seth attends he can go to at night, with his friends, as all teenagers should. Those flashing lights, crazy rides, cheap stuffed toy prizes and sweaty pashes on the Ferris wheel are virtually a right of passage, and thankfully nothing that I need to be around for. My show days are over for a good long while now, unless something extreme happens that forces me back there. 

Finally, some good news in the 'Seth leg' department! After another visit to the doctors we have discovered that although yes, the staph infection in Seth's leg does appear to be still just hanging in there, his leg has begun to do what nature intended it to do and grow some new skin. Woohoo!
Shame about the staph yes, and the poor kid is again on heavy duty meds for that, but the doc feels pretty certain that they should kick the infection upside it's fricken annoying head this time, so it's not all doom and gloom. I must admit after all that skin graft talk last week, I was starting to crap my dacks. 
The okay from the doctor has put me at ease and on a new high, team that with an upcoming four day weekend, and the world is looking mighty peachy for me again. Might even brave the Hepatitis B riddled Ballarat Show and hit the ferris wheel and the ghost train with Dib for a bit of stupid fun, we sure could use some stupid fun!
It has felt a bit like Groundhog Day lately, need to do something to break the routine, perhaps The Annual Agricultural Show is just what we need in our lives right now - Christ, I never thought I would ever write that sentence - it is truly desperate times!

Great pestilence reigns in our household this weekend. Seth had another unsuccessful visit to the doctors on Friday, and we are starting to hit dire straits with his leg injury. His leg just isn't getting any better, and now they are sending away swab samples and talk of skin grafts has been raised - yeah, shit just got real. I came home on Friday utterly deflated and filled with that feeling of hopelessness again that I hate intensely, really not a great start to the weekend. 
Then on Saturday Craig was stricken with a stomach bug and to top it all off my mobile phone died a horrible death and turned itself into a brick - which wasn't really tragic but certainly inconvenient. And then today, the first sunny weekend day in ages, I awoke with a raging head cold - full on runny nose, watering eyes, body aches and burning throat. 
So yeah, really shitty weekend for us all. They say these things come in threes, and I think we are pushing sixes now so I am looking forward to some reprieve soon.
​It is Seth's leg that I am truly worried about, everything else is just blip on the radar compared to that. We return to the doctor's yet again (becoming regular faces down there) on Tuesday and I am hanging all of my hopes and prayers on some good news. I am hoping that his secondary infection has just slowed the healing process down in his leg and that there isn't anything sinister going on, but I'm just not sure now. I have gone from concerned to worried to panicky in rapid succession and what looked like a light at the end of the tunnel turned out to be a train's headlights coming the other way. 

Not be 'out-stitched' by Seth, Zoe also had an attempt at slicing a piece of herself off this week which consisted of her hand, a sink full of hot water and some dodgy glassware that apparently came from McDonald's (speaks for itself really). Anyway, three stitches later and she's all good and back home - with antibiotics and all of her digits thank god!
My reason for being so chuffed about antibiotics is because the Seth saga still goes on. I had to race him into the doctors yet again when he presented with a manky looking bandage, high temperature, runny nose and lethargy on Tuesday. Me being all 'Staph paranoid' now virtually tore a path between Enfield and the doctors to get his leg checked, thinking that he was possibly going to keel over on us, but no, it wasn't the cut this time. It was an allergic reaction to yet another type of bandaging that was put on his leg and a simple case of the common cold. We are now down to cloth bandages, like it's 1952, because Seth seems to be allergic to everything they put near him which is making the healing process slow and laboured; but it's a million times better than Staph. So I'll do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes, to get us across the wellness line.
Pretty safe to say that I am well and truly over injuries of the lacerating kind at this point in time, and I have really come to understand how your kids injuries are a thousand times more concerning than any injury that you could have yourself. I have been worried sick about the kids over the past week, it so unsettling when they aren't 100% and there is nothing more that I can do for them than what has already been done. It's a dreadful mixture of helplessness and anxiety when your kids are unwell. I can't imagine what the parents of really unwell children must go through on a day to day basis, I shutter to think. Hopefully this is the end of our crappy run of unwellness, it's a new month and surely some sunshine is due to arrive soon....I can sense a change for the better just around the bend.