Dad was released from the hospital today after having major surgery that required the insertion of three stents and about four hours on the operating table. I think the surgeons were seriously considering sending him to the Alfred Hospital for awhile there, but they feel confident that he will okay with what they have done at this point. 
I have no idea how the silver fox managed to talk his way around an early release, but it is fair to say that my dad can really turn on the charm when he needs to and could probably entice the pants off a nun given half a chance. Needless to say, he must still have some Jagger like moves that have served him well enough to get out of hospital early, in spite of the nurses thinking he would still need another three days. I don't know how he does it!
He was mighty sore and sorry today when I collected him and delivered him home and to be honest I have my concerns about how things will go over the next few days for him.
Unlike my father who just likes to be left the hell alone, my mother needs her hand held to do a lot of tasks, she is in short, a bit of a princess and can be quite demanding. I hope that she doesn't get up in dad's face and push him before he is ready, she can be like that sometimes.
It would be fair to say that this hasn't been the funnest silly season of my life, and that is really saying something because one year we had a major gastro outbreak here on Christmas Day with a house full of guests and only two toilets, so that should put things into perspective for you. 
Now that dad is home, and hopefully resting - but I wouldn't put any money on that, I can try to get some rest myself. I am off to put my feet up, pour myself a huge whiskey and enjoy a little slice of oblivion, because God, I really need some right now! 

Christmas turned out to be a bit more of a major event than I had planned for this year. Dad had a serious heart attack and was rushed to the Ballarat ICU from Ararat at 11pm on Christmas Eve and since then things have been a bit of a blur. My mother has been staying with us since it all happened and I have been playing chauffeur, grief counselor, nurse maid and number one receiver of regular ear bashings over the festive season which has led me to require sneaky late night nips and last night I even relented and had a smoke. So very un-zen of me, but my coping mechanisms are quite stretched at present. You know when you spend Christmas night at home alone with your mother eating pasta on the couch and watching Nigella's Italian Christmas, that things have gone pretty pear shaped.
On the upside, dad has since been taken from the ICU to the regular wards and is awaiting tests and numerous pokes and prods from the doctors at the hospital, which probably wont happen until Tuesday because everyone that has half a brain has nicked off for the silly season and nothing is happening - even at the hospital. So, mum and dad are stuck sitting on their hands until things can get rolling and I am also unable to do anything myself but ride this out with them as well. It is frustrating for them for sure, and not knowing what is really going on with dad is hell to tell the truth. 
Sometimes, regardless of the inconvenience and worry, you have to suck it up and do the right thing, especially for your parents. Smile and move forwards I tell myself, these things are making me a bigger and better person, and maybe this experience  will even do something to strengthen relationships between us all, which would be the best case scenario. 

As a kid, the days leading up to Christmas always seemed to stretch on forever. There was a sense of good things to come, but the those final days between school ending and Christmas Day always seemed agonizingly long and incredibly hot when I was a child. I recall despising the days before Christmas as a kid, I was bored beyond bored back then. No-one was trying to entertain me or make the time go along any quicker, so the days would stretch on forever.
It was all "time to make your own fun" for my folks, which may have worked in the 1950's but did not work at all in the 1980's. I spent endless hours riding my bike up and down the street in the sweltering heat wishing that someone would bake gingerbread with me or do anything with me for that matter, and the hours felt like weeks. All of my friends had already taken off for their Christmas holidays to the beach or somewhere that seemed infinitely cooler than anything I had planned, or at least that's what I thought back then anyway.
I always wanted the lead up to Christmas to mean something more for my kids. Not more gifts or things, just more of a sense of being together and enjoying the anticipation rather than enduring it. We have whiled away our time with games, Christmas themed movies, trips to see the Christmas Lights and Myers' window displays, long lunches out and on the deck, and now that we have reached Christmas Eve it is time to bust out a little holiday baking and cooking as a means to get the final 24 hours to speed along; especially for Seth who doesn't have the luxury of a little afternoon tipple and a nap to make the time seem so much brighter and briefer. 
So tonight is the night, the night before Christmas, the night to stack the presents under the tree, to fill the stockings and enjoy the company of your loved ones.
​
And I shall roast up a beast - trimmed with delicious things
So my family may feast in the glow of tiny lights on strings
And then we will gather to watch our favourite pre-Christmas show
With a delightful dessert, a seasonal drink, and no threat of snow
And toasting the evening, we'll then take to our beds
And rest with anticipation swimming 'round in our heads....

Merry Christmas to all of my wonderful readers, I hope you all enjoy a marvelous and magical Christmas filled with all of the best things that the season has to offer xxx

A few near and dear friends joined me for some Christmas festivities at Enfield today. I cleverly combined Christmas, the completion of my Spicywatch review back log (can I get an Amen?) and Summer Solstice to gather a few lovely ladies together for a well earned champagne and a few shits and giggles leading into the final stretch of the silly season. 
And I really needed a bit of distraction to be honest, because the bushfire season has started furiously and incredibly early this year with a raging fire burning only ten kilometres from our home, destroying houses and businesses and burning thousands of hectares of grasslands and bush.
This is the time of the year when I least enjoy living out in the sticks, because the bush fire threat out here is real and utterly terrifying. And even though the wind was on our side and we appear to be out of the danger zone, it is just awful hearing stories about the loss and destruction that fires cause. 
The fire started yesterday, only 6 kms from us, burned through the night and has not let up today. Fortunately a brief and much needed change arrived this afternoon bringing a little rain and dropping the temperatures to tolerable, which has allowed a small window of control to occur, but the threat is certainly not over yet.
​I find myself edgy as hell on days like these, especially when it has been dry for so long and the wind is tremendously strong, there is just a sense of unease to the long hot days of summer that I really don't like that much. 
I was glad to distract myself with festive Christmas clips, too many bubbles and naughty nibbles today, there is nothing better than the distractions of friends to take your mind to far better places when you need them to. 

Jeez, some people really aren't at the best around the lead up to the holiday season are they? I do understand being tired and everyone knows that the last days are always seem to be the longest, but seriously - chill the fuck out people! 'Tis the season to be jolly, not the season to act like a total tool and lose your shit over every little thing. 
Just yesterday, I was driving through a roundabout and some guy forgot to use his indicator to turn and I almost ran into him, did I shout or anything? No, I just raised my hands in a "what was that about?" gesture, to which he proceeded to wind down his window, flip me the bird and call me a stupid fucking cunt. Bit of an over-reaction I thought, especially since I wasn't the one who forgot how to drive! And I felt embarrassed, which is ridiculous because I had done absolutely nothing wrong, and I was thinking to myself - what kind of horse-shit is this? I mean really, what the hell is wrong with some people these days? 
And today at work, a day where we didn't really have to deal with hordes of children, a day to just get a few end of year things sorted out and knock it down a notch, a whole lot of people were acting like angry beavers and spent the day grumbling around like the jam was outta their donuts. Why? It is literally two days away from the end of the year and if you ask me, that is something to be happy about! I just don't understand why everyone is so cranky, what happened to good will unto others? Why is everyone being so Grinchy all of a sudden? Well I am not buying into it, I am not letting anyone rain on my parade, I'm going out in a zen like fashion, just as I promised myself I would, with a smile on my face and a spring in my step. The work year is almost over and there are just too many good things to look forward to right now, so to all of you grumblers and moaners- well I am flipping you the bird because no one's taking the jam outta my donut this Christmas! 

My work place had their annual Christmas function on Friday night, which is generally a pretty fun night of merry making and seasonal frivolity. I always go to the staff function every year because it is nice to have a casual meal and a chat with the people that you have been working along side of all year, and lets be honest, a few drinks and a bit of a boogie on the dance floor never goes astray in December.
However, there is always at least one person (no matter where you work) that just cannot find their flood level on nights like these and will proceed to get utterly shitfaced, act like a complete buffoon and 'go at it' in ways that should never be 'gone at' at a work function. Even though it can be interesting to observe the behaviours of the crazy person when they've been set free and they're out of their usual habitat, I do find that I tire of it really quickly too. Yeah, it's always funny to a point but when things start to get offensive and possibly dangerous to this person's permanent reputation, then I stop being amused and start getting annoyed and honestly, a bit embarrassed for them as well. And then....glancing at my watch...wow is that the time? Time sure flies when you're having...whatever this is....I think I need to go home. 
Maybe I am just getting too set in my ways, maybe I should drink more bubbles and less whiskey when I go to these things, maybe I shouldn't be such a judgmental bitch, whatever the case, by 10.30pm I was done, dusted, over and out! Which is a bit of a shame really, because my work place has some really awesome people that I genuinely like to hang out with, but the introvert in me just cannot handle the crowd, the noise and the carry on. 
Without the prospect of needing a cigarette to create an out for me, I found myself contemplating the wallpaper at one point whilst trying to ignore an extremely drunken co-worker that had taken to unrolling condoms with her mouth whilst attempting (but failing epically) to dance provocatively. You cannot just unsee that shit- how can I face her on Monday now with that image in my head? Anyway, it was around that time that I decided that perhaps I had had my fill and was going home for a coffee and some hypnotherapy to wipe some of the less tasteful things from my mind. And that was that, another Christmas function over, another week closer to the end of Term and another step nearer to Christmas Day...it's all just moving too fast! 

You know it's Christmas when every store that you go into is belting out carols and you find yourself happily humming along to Boney M and Wham. You also know it's Christmas when your calendar starts to look like a logistical nightmare and you are craving just one night at home on the couch. 
You really know that it's Christmas when you listen to your son play Frosty the Snowman on his guitar for the hundredth time in a week, when you think that buying a Christmas Tee for a work function seems plausible and a mid-week tipple not only appears to be reasonable, but more than likely necessary too. 
Yep, Christmas - or the lead up to it anyway, sure is a wacky time of year. It is nice to dot all the i's and cross all the t's at the end of the year, but things can just seem so overwhelming at times as well. The mere thought of going down the street this weekend to Christmas shop has given me a twitch, and people at work have been commenting on the fact that I look tired already, which is not a good sign. 
We are most definitely on the downward spiral now, with only 10 days left until work winds up and everyone takes off for a break, so the end is truly in sight, and even though I may look exhausted, I am actually feeling pretty good. In spite of all of the cheesy Christmas capers and heightened sense of finality, this is probably - and dare I say it - the most fun part of it all.....the build up to Christmas. Sure it's busy, a little frantic even, but it's the last push before the bliss, and there is certainly magic to be found there in those final hours.
​So I am choosing to be gentle myself, and with everyone else too, because we all deserve a little extra TLC at this time of the year. So, rather than getting in flurry and being grumpy, rather than avoiding the Christmas swell of excitement, I am just going with it. Whatever makes you happy, whatever makes you smile, whatever gives you joy, whatever gets you through - just go with it, don't fight it, because Santa Claus is Coming to Town, ​and no matter what you do, you can't hide from Christmas! 

I don't care how good your relationship is with your partner, there are going to be some days when you wonder why the hell the two of you ever got together in the first place. This is a completely normal thing for all couples to feel on occasion, when they are not functioning at their best, we just don't go around talking about it because no-ones wants to admit that their wife/ husband is making them fricken crazy. 
But I am going to say it, my husband is making me fricken crazy at the moment. And I am 100% sure that Craig would say exactly the same thing about me right now if someone asked him. We have spent the best part of this weekend having the shits with each other, in one way or another. From time to time, this happens to us, and after 21 years of marriage you are going to get on each other's nerves sometimes. The problem with Craig and I is that we don't fight that often anymore and when we do, we just don't know how to stop!
We are both just so incredibly stubborn and pigheaded that neither of us is ever willing to relent, it's like Clash of the bloody Titans! Perhaps it is because we are both the youngest of five, so we are really good at arguing our point and getting our own way, but whatever the reason, it can go on for days and days.
This means that things can get ridiculous before they finally cease. Most of the time we are just so bored of fighting and can't even recall what got the whole thing started in the first place, that we just give up. Isn't that pathetic? Yesterday our fight eventually ended with Craig covered in tomato slices and me with a salad sandwich on my head! What the hell...I mean, really? We just had to laugh about it in the end because it was so ridiculous! And true to form, I don't even know how we got started, something trivial for sure, it always is. 
This hectic time of the year certainly does tend to test even the most well composed of us, stretching every bit of our patience as we make our mad dash towards the end of the year finish line whilst trying to juggle too many events and a million other stupid logistical nightmares in an attempt to reach Christmas in an orderly fashion. But anyway, I'm done with all the fighting, it's a pointless and un-fulfilling exercise that just leaves me feeling even more exhausted and always asking the same damn question - why do we fight anyway? 

Good Lord, it is all going on...the Christmas crazies have began. The tree is up -  decorated to within an inch of it's life, the advent calendar has been opened and the reality of Christmas has become glaringly and utterly unavoidable. Now I shall begin to seriously contemplate my Christmas shopping list, deciding who I need to buy for, who I feel obligated to buy for and who I should permanently cull from my list because they don't deserve anything for being such a tool all year. 
In all seriousness though, I actually love to give gifts at Christmas. I find the giving exceedingly enjoyable and spoiling people at Christmas does seem like a rather simple and yet highly enjoyable thing to do. I am generally not the most demonstrative person in the world, I find social hugs and kisses a tad awkward and I am the last person to rush to comfort a person when they are upset. That doesn't mean that I don't care, I just kind of freeze up like a deer in headlights and tend to look at my feet awkwardly, shuffling around and hoping that someone with far better heart mending skills than me will arrive soon to restore order. But giving someone a gift, well I am all over that - it's a pretty packaged way of saying 'I think you're great' without having to gush or get touchy feely. Perfect! 
So with the tinsel glittering, the lights flashing and the baubles shimmering, it is time to bust out my Christmas cards and make my list, problem is, that I don't really have anyone that I can cull, because everyone has been so kind to me this year. Which means that this could be a rather hexy Christmas if I continue to let my purse be demonstrative for me! Goddammit, being an emotional cripple does have it's down side.