Destination: Struggle Town. Population: Me

                                                                   Source: loveyourchaos.tumblr.com via TissueClouds on Pinterest

When you find yourself 7 months pregnant and staring at the next 7 painfully empty days without your partner around to keep you company or fill the lonely nights with love, I wonder, what's a hormonally unstable pregnant lady to do?

I could sigh no less than 10 times a minute…
Curl up in a ball hugging my big belly and cry…
Mindlessly eat half a carton of choc/caramel ice cream till I feel sick…
Surf the internet/TV channels waiting for something interesting to jump out and entertain me enough to take my mind off him long enough not to sigh again in this same sentence…
Send him multiple texts bordering on the psychotic…
and when all that is said and done I could start the cycle again.
Le sigh, siigh, siiiighhhh…

But when you've had enough of sighing till you hyperventilate you could do what I've done and write up an incredibly lame list of things to do to pass the time while he's gone.
Ahem… here goes:

1. Spend over an hour on Pinterest pinning useless images & links like your life and the lives of those who follow you depends on it.

2. Fill your day with as much work as possible.
No I don't need to finish early today.
Sure, a 13 hour shift is totally appropriate for a woman in my condition.
Please stay and have another treatment. Nooo don't leave me… 

3. Catch up on reading your pregnancy guides. 
Go back over the early months and reminisce if you must.

4. Scan Facebook for updates every 10 minutes & stalk the about page of your entire friends list.
You'll be amazed at the banality or downright stupidity of what some people will write about themselves.

5. Watch all the crappy/ trashy TV that your heart desires guiltlessly.

6. Make half hearted meals for one.
Spaghetti ala Heinz tomato sauce anyone?
How about cheese and crackers? Tuna straight from the can is always a winner.

7. Catch up on blogging ;)

8. Write a really shit post about your inability to have a life outside of your husband.

9. Upload and categorise your holiday photos and finally write some posts about the times you weren't so lame and had said life you now lack.

10. Think of people to visit so as not to be home alone more than you need to be.

11. Take naps.

12. Go out and buy the box set of season one of Once Upon A Time and catch up on all the episodes your hubby wouldn't let you watch in peace while it was free to air.

13. Stay up really late until you're tired enough to go to bed without him by your side.

14. When you wake in the middle of the night to pee/stretch your back/stretch your hips or reheat your wheat pack, read a book with the lamp on to help you fall asleep again rather than trying to strategically toss and turn with your numerous pillows in the dark, all the while, trying not to wake your significant other or push him out of the bed or smother his annoying snoring face with them.

15. Don't bother with your hair and make up nearly as much as usual.

Which wasn't much to begin with I might add…

16. Clean the house like you have OCD.

17. Make a start on the office/junk room that you can barely open the door to.

18. Go out and buy some curtain railings in order to hang up those curtains that you bought over two weeks ago. 
It'll feel really nice to walk around your own lounge in your underwear again without scaring your neighbours children for life or have to live in fear of peeping toms watching your every move while hubby is away.

19. Analyse your baby name list and eliminate options by charting the best combinations to suit your last name via numerology testing.

Seriously, by now you're surely THAT bored.

20. Take another nap. You've earned it.

Memories

Source: jesseharding.tumblr.com via Meg on Pinterest

I'd been catching up on some blog reading today and came across this cute post via
The Girl Diagnosed, which jogged my ever cloudy memory to the fact that I once wrote a letter to my future self when I was 14…
(If only I could also remember where I hid it…)

I'm supposed to open it on my 30th birthday which is this coming January. Drats!

Looks like I have 2 months to ransack my old bedroom and hopefully find it.

Please God don't let me find out my Mum has put it "In a Safe Place" (ie: the Ether of the Universe)

Things I'm afraid to tell you…

Source: inspirational-pictures.com via Elizabeth on Pinterest

Recently I read this post written by Rhianne of For the easily distracted, who was inspired first by EZ of Creature Comforts who in turn was inspired by a 'Things I'm afraid to tell you' blog challenge created by Jess of Makeunder My Life.
The fact that this has trickled into a force of such momentum as to have over 50+ bloggers participation is astounding and gives me hope that honesty is in fact the best policy.

While it's always lovely to draw inspiration from such pretty sites as design and fashion forums, blogs etc, there's an element of nicey niceness within it that, well… sometimes just feels a bit forced.
And when it does appear that some people are just so effortlessly cool, it only serves to reaffirm my own self doubts - which of coarse is a problem of my own creation - no one can make you feel something you don't already believe...

Anyway I'm rambling, as usual.
I think I'm usually very honest on this space (probably waaaay too honest actually) but hey why not push the boundaries even further?
What is self growth if not the ability to laugh in the face of your own ridiculous face?

The fact is, that to do anything in the world worth doing,

we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger,

but jump in and scramble through as best as we can.

~Robert Cushing

Right then, let's dive in shall we?

☁ I've collected every card and every letter I've ever received and store them in old shoe boxes.
Proper letters, not bills and stuff, that'd be weird. (Although I do have a few of those floating around too. Sometimes I just put them down or shove them in a draw somewhere and forget to throw them away till I get in the mood to Spring clean.)

☁ Before renovating my dining room, all that space was used as a junk room.
No, I don't mean just a few random bits and bobs that don't have any other place in the house.
I'm talking about things like piles of clothes that don't fit in my already bursting and outdated wardrobe, my very first PlayStation console (plus games) as well as a monthly collection of Dolly magazines dating back from my first days of HighSchool. Do they count as vintage?

☁ During said renovation, rather than sorting through all that crap I simply dumped it all into what used to be the study but is now the Room of Doom. (You can barely open the door or even walk into it without fear of being crushed by clutter).
Sometimes while watching Hoarders I worry that I may become like that one day.
I joke about it all the time but my Dad has always had a tendency to hoard and I worry since I do take after him, more than I care to admit, that it will happen with me too.

☁ I cry whenever I get angry. I cry especially hard if ever anyone is angry with me, even if I just think they are. My stomach gets all knotted and I replay the scenario in my head till I think I've convinced myself I couldn't have done anything wrong but then the tears come anyway.
I hate to disappoint and I especially hate confrontation so a combination of the two is simply a disaster.

☁ When I get too personal about my inner feelings I worry that I'm coming across all emo and needy, not to mention super depressing, and that I will turn people off me.

☁ But when I avoid talking about my darker moments I worry that I'm no longer being real and that you will all get bored of me.

☁ I'm completely in love with my dog and consider him my fur baby far too much than is normal.

☁ Sometimes I think my photos are actually really crappy and so amateur that people only say nice things about them so as not to hurt my feelings.
I also worry that I have no actual talent in photography and that attempting to get any good at it will turn out to be a waste of time.
With so many wonderful photography blogs out there showcasing so much amazing work I feel I'll forever be on the back foot. But it makes me happy that I'm trying and so I continue.

☁ I know I use (brackets) and 'commas' and italic far too much than I should. But.I.Just.Can't.Stop…

☁ I'm not at all very domestic (it comes and goes in sparks & spurts) and worry that one day this will come between hubby and I.

☁ After almost a year of blogging I still don't know what the hell my blog is about or where on Earth any of this is heading.

☁ I get so nervous before any and every social occasion to the point that I get snappy and irritable at every little thing to go wrong. I don't understand why this happens but it gets so bad that I can't make a single decision during my panic and always end up over or under doing it when making myself up.
I've found the only thing that helps is to put on soothing background music while getting ready in order to calm myself down.

☁ I've been known to eat jam straight from the jar. Especially gooseberry jam which I only just discovered recently but boy oh boy does that stuff taste out of this world!

☁ I'm afraid that lists like these make me seem incredibly insecure, self absorbed and neurotic.

☁ Secretly I hope you instead find them endearing and relatable and therefor will prove me to be completely irrational and wrong about myself.

And so now I will go bury my head in my blankets and pretend I never pushed publish.

Goodnight. 

via

Random Refrain

<this song comes with a language warning>

Don't ask why because I couldn't tell you, but I've had this song stuck in my head for two whole days now… why is it always the most random tunes that this happens with?
For some unknown reason the more you try to get it out the deeper it lodges itself in there,
don't you think?

Oh well, could be worse. At least it's not a song I hate or a stupid jingle - hate when that happens.
"Da, da, dat, dat, daaa - I'm lovin' it!"

What's the worst tune you've ever had stuck in your head?

I've Gotchya Captcha

Source: brainstuck.com via Robin on Pinterest 

Mostly it doesn't really faze me when a few "anonymous" comments pop up in my blog stream now and then.
Mostly I can deal with the mild annoyance of getting all excited and then inevitably disappointed over a false message by simply deleting it out of my history and out of my life.
But mostly I just hate using captchas so much myself that I wouldn't want to impose this irritating add on upon you lovely people.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to the trouble of leaving a note on a blog, deliberating over the wording or the right thing to say, only to notice the captcha at the bottom of the screen seconds after closing the tab leading my comment to nought.

Plus have you noticed how hard those things are to read sometimes?
I'm no robot but seriously, some are like deciphering hieroglyphics!

Well that was my stance, at least until this week when I received no less than 10 anonymous comments in a matter of 4 days.

WTF???!!!

So now that I've had my fill of spam from sites such as Bread Machine stating that they love my surveys and would I like more traffic to my blog I'm wondering dear readers, what is your opinion of captchas?

Do they help?
Are they a hindrance?
If I added one to my page would it deter you from commenting? 
(this last one is most important as I sooo love getting your comments - little attention hog that I am.)

I don't like the idea of making it that little bit harder to have your say here but the irritation of irrelevant spam is frustrating me to no end.
I'm not sure how much longer I can stand it…

To add, or not to add:
that is the question… 

Do I Really Wanna Know?

Apparently I do… 

and now I wish I didn't.

Oh well, they say acceptance is the first step but I refuse to accept that I'm 12kgs heavier than I was this time last year.

Sucks to be me right now.

How could I be so blind?
I think I must suffer from a rare form of body dysmorphia -
you know, the kind where I think I look like Kate Moss when in fact I'm more like a beached whale…

Oh dear me, back on the horse she goes.

The Birds

I feel like her questions should be directed at me.

Although yesterday I was giving a similarly hysterical performance.

Why are they doing this? Why!?!

Am I some kind of things-that-flap whisperer?

(haha, considering what I do for a living, maybe.)

Ok let me re phrase that; I don't like things with wings but for some unknown reason they flock to me like flies to honey. Or more fittingly, like moths to a flame.

It took all my courage to walk calmly and not cry hysterically while in the butterfly enclosure up in Queensland.

As others stood patiently, waiting for them to land on their outstretched hands, I hot footed my way through and still managed to have a swarm of them land all over me.

When birds swoop my car I close my eyes and swerve. 

If something flies at me it's at its own risk since you can be sure I'll either flail wildly or run from the room screaming.

Right, so it's established, I'm a weird freak.

Now here's the backstory.

It all started a few months ago when the feisty little pigeons in my area decided that dog food was rather nice to munch on.

Since Oscar neither invokes fear or attempts to even try to chase them away, the birds have no qualms about helping themselves to his meals.

My little man is a sharer.

Now here's where it kind of gets messy.

We all know Oscar is a spoilt little pooch.

A day left out in the backyard is like a year in the wilderness for him.

When left outside for prolonged periods he comes bolting inside at the end of the day dishevelled and distressed barking like a mad dog for a good five minutes.

You could imagine what he would be saying in puppy speak.

Because I work from home he is predominately inside with me most of the time and because he has a lot a bit of separation anxiety he's gotten very good at holding onto his business (which couldn't be good for him surely) but when nature eventually bashes on his door screaming he very calmly scratches at my salon door alerting me that he needs to go outside. An almost perfect system.

Occasionally I don't hear him and accidents can happen, so on warm enough days I usually just leave the door to the backyard slightly ajar for easy bathroom access and initially the worst thing about this would be allowing flies into the house.

Not anymore.

Remember the pigeons with an appetite for MyDog? (the food not my actual dog)

Yea, well it must be really tasty since they've decided it would be worth the risk to creep inside the back door for a sneaky snack search and subsequently get trapped.

It seems flying in through a crack in the door is easier than flying back out again.

No biggy. Although the first time this happened I nearly cried and proceeded to hold my bladder all day (to get to the toilet you have to go through the laundry) but when this kept happening, I soon worked out that I could open the side door to the laundry pop some food just outside of it and this would usually encourage the trapped rat with wings to follow its greedy stomach to freedom.

Then there was that bird. The partridge in my Christmas tree.

I don't know what the hell possessed that one to come inside but I figured the allure of a natural bushy tree inside the shelter of a home was too good an offer to pass up.

Hence no real tree will ever feature in my house again.

I thought that would be the end of it.

You guessed it - I was wrong.

I don't know what I've done to deserve it but already in the space of a week I've been scared half out of my wits.

Firstly on Monday night by this:

No, it's not a bird. That, my friends, is a moth.

If you think I dislike butterflies, how do you reckon I feel about these ugly mo fo's…

To put it in perspective it was roughly the size of Oscars head.

Ok, so maybe it was more like the size of my palm… but still, you have to agree, that's one big assed moth!

I couldn't sleep for fear I would wake up with it down my throat a la Silence of the Lambs.

I knew it had flown into the bathroom but couldn't even muster the courage to get up and close the door on it.

I begged hubby to get up and kill it or at least shut the bathroom door before wedging a towel under it (so it wouldn't crawl out from under there) but he quickly dismissed my ridiculousness then merely rolled over and went back to sleep.

Thankfully it was dead in the morning.

(which is the only reason I could get close enough to take a photo of it for you.)

And finally I bring you to yesterdays fiasco.

So I'm getting ready for work, minding my own business when I hear a furious flapping coming from what I assume is the laundry.

No problem, I figure.

I'm seasoned now, surely I can deal with this in a breeze.

I simply closed the laundry door leading into the house and opened the one from the sideway.

Curiously I can't see the bird anywhere in the usual places.

'Hmmm, maybe it's hiding in the toilet', I think to myself.

Back to my routine and within minutes more furious flapping.

'Stupid bird' I muse, 'Just fly out the freeken side door, you idiot'

I finish applying my make up and setting up my room for the day, sit down to wait for my first client while trawling through the web and simply expect the bird to be gone by lunch time.

A half hour ticks by and I havn't heard the bird.

Hopeful and with bated breath, I walk to the laundry door and open it just a peep, just enough to peek around the room.

Ok so nothing. I breathe a sigh of relief.

As I turn to walk away, there, perched on my kitchen sink, is the one and the same goddamn pigeon!

For a second I stand frozen, caught in the dead eye stare of this brazen bird before suddenly it decides to take me on and in a flash we are a flurry of frantic flapping and blood curdling screams.

You'll be relieved to know I managed to make it out of there alive before slamming the door to my lounge, (yes I live in a fun house of a thousand doors), shutting it off from the rest of my house.

Just then my first client turns up to find me weeping into the phone. Hubby once again had to save the day though I've since discovered he's not a big fan of birds or bugs either, so is more a hindrance than a help.

His solution? To rip open the fly screen on the kitchen window in order to unhook the latch that opens it to allow it a way out...

yea, now I have a torn up fly screen in my kitchen window and more bird poop than you can poke a stick at.

I know, it's definitely time for a doggy door and you best believe it will be a magnetic one or I fear it'll be stray cats next.

I'm like that song about the woman that swallowed the fly then swallowed the bird to catch the fly then swallowed the cat to catch the bird to catch the fly etc, etc…

Oh why me dear lord? Why me?

You know what they say…

About how absence makes the heart grow fonder?
Well it's true.

On the other hand it makes for so much catching up it's almost too overwhelming to be attempted (or maybe I'm just easily overwhelmed...)

I've missed blog land so much this week but real life has been keeping me pretty sharp on my toes.
No time for cooking or cleaning, eating or breathing let alone blogging and happy snap sharing.

I can't tell you how much I hate doing the laundry and after our little escape to Lakes Entrance last week (which was picturesque and will be shared as soon as I can manage it) we have dirty clothes, dried up salt, sea and sand up the wazoo!
And since I've been working 12hr days from the minute we got back the house is in such a state I can barely stand to look at it… or stand up for that matter.
Ever wanted to burn your house down and start again?
Well that's just about where I'm at.

FYI - Remind me next Christmas to never get a real tree again.
I don't care how nice they look and smell I'd rather spray my perfect spider free low maintenance plastic one with Pine-o-clean for affect than deal with the hassle of the real thing.
You wouldn't believe the mess this one left in its wake - I fear I'll be finding pine needles for the rest of my life!
Besides that I had spiders crawling out of the wood works (white-tails I might add!) and, as the cherry on the cake, a pigeon decided to fly down our chimney and roost in the damn thing.
It was flapping around in there for a week before we could get rid of it. Pigeon poop and pine needles are the result of that wonderful idea - Yay!

p.s. I would have added a lovely picture to this post but I can't find Didge - I think I may have left her up at Lakes :(
Secondly there are no less than 7 rolls of film waiting to be developed but even if I could afford to get them processed right now my laptops disc reader has decided to pack itself in.
(So much for Macs being highly reliable, at little over a year old, this one's practically obsolete apparently.)
So this means more fun and games converting the photos from analogue to disc and then onto a USB - It's all a bit too much for this pre-menstrual lady to tackle right now.
I think I need a big drink and little lie down.
And,Yes, I think I will have some cheese with my whine thanks.

Wake me when it's 2013.