Change?

Should you change for the one you love? Is changing some behaviour that hurts your chosen changing who you are? Or is it classed as changing how you operate?

I'm being told I am unreasonable for asking for change with regards to something that hurts me deeply and has a significant history of going very badly. It's not a minor thing.

So who changes? What if one refuses to even try to negotiate? Is it game over?

Stirring syrup.

I'm standing here stirring syrup because I don't know what else to do. I know I won't sleep. At least, I have syrup.

Martha, an acquaintance of mine, is sitting in a hospital waiting for news of her Husband, father to her tribe, her Chosen. He was in an accident. He may not wake up. He may not breathe on his own. He may never feel anything below his neck even if he does learn to breathe on his own.

I wonder about Martha. How does one wait to hear the fate of your Chosen. Do you pretend to read magazines? Do you check your phone for the trivial bullshit on Facebook?

Is she just staring at her hands?

I doubt I will sleep tonight. But in the very least, as I pray, as I try to keep hope, but feel my heart breaking... At least I have berry juice syrup to stir for my babies to pour on yoghurt in the morning.

FIFO vs Single Parents

I have so many friends in different situations.
And every single mother I know, I respect. Please note I am writing this from that Dangerous place, IME! In My Experience. I mean no disrespect to families that aren't hubby-wife-kids, this is just MY experience.

Girls, it's time to stop with the comparisons.

A Fly In Fly Out mother will never understand a single mother.

And single mother can't understand a FIFO mum's life unless she has lived it.

There's the mum with the hubby/partner who just are not interested in family.

And then... the perfect family, the one we all secretly envy, or perhaps not even so secretly. Hubby who is home, present and up to the challenge of equality in life space.

I have been both. I was the one who prepared for alone time for long periods and relied heavily on friends to help me cope... especially so in a foreign country with no family. You know what? Almost no one helped. Even when I practically begged and couldn't walk, heavily pregnant with baby#2 in a 3 storey house. It just didn't happen, except for those precious few who were genuine friends.

The first time hubby went away for an extended period, it rained FOR A MONTH STRAIGHT, no joke. It sucked. It hurt. I was lonely and exhausted.

You know though, both suck.
Both are exhausting.

Ok so FIFO mums aren't technically single, but they can feel like it. Even if they don't understand what true single parent hell is like, they still are having a crappy time. Let's not add to it by taking offence to single-parentesque comparisons. Ok?

You're not a tree

A friend wrote a little Ditty last week called "You're Not a Tree"
It essentially goes
If you don't like where you are, Get off your ass and change....
You can be wherever you want to be, because you're not a tree.

This link may or may not work for you!

You know when you get those moments where a simple (sometimes silly) statement like that blindsides you?

I'm not a tree. I have control over the floors. It's not the forest floor that I can't rake up the leaves around me.
If I'm unhappy with the clutter, then I need to get rid of it.
No excuses.
I am unhappy with my social life, so I should just ask one of my sitters and go out.
No excuses. 

I'm not a tree. I can move on and I can fix a lot of what is wrong with my life.
And so I shall.

Why do we do it to ourselves!

If you wrote down everything you're supposed to do on a regular basis, and all the things you're peripherally involved in, would the total list shock you?

I KNOW I am over-committed. Totally. That's pretty why I don't watch TV. But I LOVE everything I do. I'm not giving up my coffee team. I'm NOT giving up helping friends with small businesses. I'm NOT giving up my 'down' time of gaming. I can't give up housework, parenting and quality time with friends that need me.

I live in Chaos - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome
So I'm taking my flylady baby steps, and maybe I'll discover I'm not over-committed, I'm just more resourceful than I thought when I'm organised and decluttered.

One on One

I'm finding playgroup more and more difficult to cope with.
Am I too jaded having done playgroup for so many years?? Is it just my current "Leave me alone!" state of mind that makes it difficult to cope with more than one person in a conversation right now?

Or have we lost the art of polite group conversation... Have *I* lost that art?
More interestingly, why is it that Playgroup is the only regular time I can think of that I meet and converse with more than one person at a time. Where is my village!

I'm a slack ass Blogger

I blog in my head, almost constantly.
But being a single mother of three... Life Ain't so easy to blog and POST it.
Yes, I said single. No, I don't want to talk about it.

So I was sold a car by a friend who lives interstate with the promise of "It just needs new tyres and maybe front brakes."

Front Wheel Bearings, Four new tyres, four new brakes, four new shock absorbers, a new windscreen, cooling system work, new muffler and new seals later... It's almost ready to be roadworthied. #facepalm

Not really their fault, I should have gotten it checked before I bought it. But it's taken all my savings and then some.

And then... They sell my house out from under me.

So now I have to find bond to cover a new place until I get it back from here.

Despite all this... brokenness, chaos, poverty and pain, I'm choosing to be joyful.

Hey atleast I had savings, right? And now I have a car that WILL keep on rolling.
I have amazing friends helping me find somewhere new to live that will be a huge blessing, and doing work on my car to reduce mechanic labour costs. I have amazing parents helping me afford a safe, clean, mould-free place to live with my kids. I have an amazing Bestie, who listens so patiently and is so gentle with her timely applications of reframing concrete and the reality stick adjustments to my perspective.
I have an amazing God; who takes the Stuff I don't want.
Pain about my broken relationship that may or may not be healed? God, take it. I don't want to nurse this right now. I can't change it, just... Take it.
Worry about finances? Not helpful and destructive to my sleep patterns! Here God, YOU HAVE IT!
Fear about the future... OH SO don't want that. All yours God.

Funny thing is, when I choose to hand it over, the good and the bad; When I lay down my life and say here God, take it... He does. He heals, He soothes, He LOVES.
I can be joyful in the midst of the horror of my life (which is MY fault, not HIS!) because I have a Daddy God who never fails me.