OK, FINE Emily

 When it's been a whole 10 years since I turned this thing back on, it's a sure sign the world is a mess. Twitter is a dumpster fire. FB is, look whatever even is FB anymore? Insta is nice if it is carefully curated and full of food and plants and absent daughters.

God, I even had to google 'how find your old blog'. It was easier than I expected, maybe that is a sign? OR maybe that is Emily manifesting it, who knows? the universe is peculiar place.

Quick catch up! My kids are now all adults! The twins have just finished High School! Only Atti, the baby who was 6 when last I blogged, is still at school and about to start Year 11! Andrew is a school psychologist! 

Oddly, Things have Happened in a decade. Who knew?

(Also I don't know why I did that catch-up when the only people who read this already know this stuff. Self-involved much Nicola?)

~ ~ ~ ~

Reading back through some posts, I noticed that I had a lot more words a decade ago. A LOT more words. Maybe the words were frittered away over the years. Maybe they were used up, in anger and in pain and in confusion. Maybe we are allotted a certain amount of words in one lifetime. Maybe they've been hidden, swept under the carpet, accidentally caught up with life's detritus. Maybe they've snuck away, neglected and rejected and hurt, waiting forlornly in a mousehole in my mind. Maybe, perhaps, hopefully, they can be coaxed back? 

~ ~ ~ ~

Look, I don't know. My mind is mush. That single paragraph made my brain hurt. It doesn't like working much anymore.

Struggle Street

I'm struggling...

Struggling with the overwhelming negativity that seems to be all-pervasive, from the macro to the micro, from heaven to earth, from here to eternity.

I'm skimming the news everyday, can hardly bear to read full articles, can't stand the increasing nastiness of politics and daily discourse. I engage in a form of self-harm by reading the 'comments' on the SMH, or even worse, the Mercury, and am dismayed again by the shallow, the selfish, the vitriol, the arrogance, the narrow-freaking-mindedness of People.

God I hate people sometimes.

I'm wrestling with angels, or indeed something else strong enough to dislocate my shoulder, to weigh me down with the neverending internal arguments and monologues.

I find my comfort in familiar places - in the bath, soaking away the blah, in the kitchen, humming and focusing on the food (always the food!), in the garden, ripping out those weeds, tying back those tendrils, creating order, controlling my environment, any environment... seeing as I've got no chance of controlling that in my head, on focusing on positives around me...

And yet, tonight I've found a space for myself, of peace, of pate-on-rye, of *sigh*

Tortilla time

So, I've just got back from a beautiful wedding in Minto Heights... A's stepbrother married a gorgeous Vietnamese girl, who steadfastly refused to have a traditional wedding, so we were treated to s spectacular combination of feisty and quirky with a gentle traditionalism entwined through the service. And love. So much love.

Apart from at our table where we dealt with the narcissist  that is my new sister in law. Less love there, but moving on...

I've been wanting to return to blogging for a while now, as I think all of us who blogged do. Yearning for a return to words and community and dialogue that is sadly lacking in the Facebook connection. Not to confused with the rainbow connection. Facebook is anything but that.

I'm sitting on my kitchen floor, typing as A plays his Martin and composes new toons. I'm drinking temperanillo and making a whatever's-in-the-fridge tortilla. Seems apt. Food, music, wine, these are the things that my life is made of. And children. So many of them. All so beautiful and also beautifully not here right now. A chance to breathe, a chance to make espresso martinis and chill out while being jumped on by a psycho kelpie. Is that tautology????

Tautology was one of our 'words of the week' while we were growing up. For some reason my dad decided we all needed to expand our vocab, so he would pick a word in the dictionary at random and we had to learn how to spell it, use it in context etc. Tautology is the only one I can remember, so clearly that was some successful parenting, right there. Kinda like our conversation with one of the kids in the car this afternoon about whether prawns have skeletons or not... Yes, they do, they have exoskeletons etc etc. The amount of useless crap that comes out of our mouths when 'educating' our kids is insane...

And yet bizarrely, I started this post just wanting to ask why Liquorland doesn't home-deliver when I've run out of vodka and want to make more martinis.*

*I literally had enough vodka to make a martini each, I am not that bad. Yet.

Not An April Fools Joke!

I miss this.

(Let's just jump in shall we? I mean, pool and sea-wise, I'm usually an incher-in, not a diver-in, but blog-wise, I guess we just have to be brave... no dipping of big toes in here)

A lot's been going on in my world since last I blogged... and so many times over the last eighteen months I've had a post written in my head and it just hasn't happened... and then, as with so much, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to go back.

But oh how I've missed it.

Facebook and Twitter (still don't know how that works either - I mean it's a prefect medium for some, but I find it, I dunno, irrelevant? constrictive?) just don't give the same depth of communication. Or community for that matter.

I miss my blogging friends, and the chance to have a discussion, a real discussion - an exchange of ideas, in less than 140 characters or a 'like' button.

I love yous all. That's it, pretty much.

Testing testing....

one two

one two

is this thing still on????

Minus Four

One of these days I'm going to be able to pluck one of the many ideas floating around in my head, and actually take it further than a single sentence... here's hoping anyways...

The Black Cockatoos are back in the tall gum behind my house. This is a sure sign summer is on the way (even surer than the warm temperatures of late, even)... it gladdened my heart and raised my spirits to a ridiculous level when I heard their telltale (and oddly mournful) squawking yesterday morning.

I discovered the other day that it is my intrinsic eccentricity and general air of oddness that attracted my gentleman friend - so yay for quirky then... Hey kids! Stay in School! Say No to drugs! True Love waits! And don't worry about being different... it may only take until you're (almost) 35, but one day someone will take you as you are, so don't go changing or trying to fit in or wearing black nailpolish and going all emo, things will be Good one day...
Of course as this conversation was taking place my internal monologue was all 'Huh. When did I turn into Bridget Jones...? Interesting...'

My take on the Global Financial Crisis... Far Out guys... all it takes is for a few of you to grow some and then we won't be having these issues. Financiers = a bunch of pissweak pansies. Heck, I was married to a Economics Major for 13 years, I know what I'm talking about!

I am taking the Big Girls to a couple of seminars tonight. Those seminars... the ones put on by the school and presented by Interrelate... the 'What's happening to me' and the 'More detail about what's happening to me (Plus all about Wet Dreams)' ones... A think there was a communal 'ewwwww grossssssss!' from the three of us when we read the newsletter. But, its tonight. And it won't be awkward AT ALL. But you never know... I could actually learn something! Stay tuned for Actonb's new insights tomorrow!

Short and Sweet

I realised this morning that this whole thang is working towards the greater good... You know, a little bit 'everything works for good for those who love the Lord'...

It feels like waking up after a loooonnng sleep and luxuriating in the half-consciousness... stretching and welcoming a new day, a new life... a new me...