What About Me?

It isn't fair ..... *think Shannon Noll*

I'm in a bit of a funk.

I have not one reason to feel funky like this.

But I do.

And it sucks.

Life would be so much easier if we didn't have these human minds.

I think I'd prefer to be a lioness, who has a much higher risk of death and starvation, but doesn't have to fuck around with thought processes and over analytical shite going on in her head. She is born, grows up with the guidance of the pride. She then hardens up and deals with life. She mates, has cubs, and does what her mother did, what her mother's mother did, what her mother's mother's mother did and so on....

She doesn't ponder if she's sailing her soul's ship in the right direction.

She doesn't worry about her self image.

She doesn't fear social interaction.

She doesn't procrastinate or she dies.

She doesn't decide to go off and try a new career as an elephant.

She doesn't choose to put herself first, or last.

She just lives her predetermined path in life and that is the way nature intended it.

I need to find my inner feline.

If You Read One Post Today .....

This is the one to read:

Clarity and Certainty

It is written by Craig Harper and is just fantastic, so very timely for me.

Let me know if it was timely for you.

Confessions of a Bad Mother

Tuesday night we had Pizza Hutt for dinner (sodium laden shite that it is).

Phoebe (child no 3) is gluten free due to being labelled gluten sensitive 2 and a half years ago.

She refuses to eat anything with gluten in it. Which is good.

I couldn't be arsed driving the 35 minutes into Christchurch to get a gluten free Pizza for her from Hell Pizza, soooooo ....

I got her a little Pizza Hutt pizza and told her it was gluten free.

I know, I am a terrible mother.

For Spiky

Last, but not least, as a conclusion to the Voyeur subject, darling Spiky wanted to know my dreams ........ I take it she doesn't mean those smutty but gorgeous ones that I have where I'm ...............

So here goes Toni, my inner dreams, past and present:

When I was young I always knew I would have kids in my twenties, I was never clucky, never into babies, I just knew.

I was a whizz at school, I was popular but never the most popular. I always love horses, like LOVED horses.

In my early teens I dreamt of being a journalist, I was fucken great at writing, was top of my classes in English and was inquisitive by nature. I delved into it in my fifth form English class, entered an essay in a bid to become a youth journalist for the Wellington's evening post. I succeeded. I wrote a couple of stories but was disillusioned by it all, what I wrote wasn't what was printed, the general gist of it was there but not word for word, that fucked me off, to be honest.

I settled on Veterinary, that was what I would be, doctor to all animals, friend of the little creatures....

A bad boyfriend in my 17th year ended those hopes as I became obsessed with being part of a couple, obsessed with being his girl. I miscarried and he dumped me, all in the same week, actually he dumped me and then I miscarried, not aware I was pregnant. It was harsh for a 17 year old. Especially one who thought she was in love....

I left school, my dreams were non existent, life revolved around drinking, working and the eagerness to please and to be accepted, the social anxiety pushed under by the alcohol, the desperation for that feeling of being needed, random sex filled that gap for me. Things got really bad, I existed week upon week, socially I was a ball of laughs, could drink any of the boys under the table, could party till dawn and do it all again the next day. I lost my job, I was a drunken mess really. I moved back home and my parents rekindled that desire in me to make something of my life, that desire to learn. I applied to Veterinary School, I got accepted into the initial intake. As the previous post mentioned, I became pregnant unexpectedly.

I again threw away any dreams. It is timely that an old school friend has recently contacted me via Facebook and she is living my old dream. She is in her last year of studying to be an Equine Vet, she is also engaged to her man and they live on a 1,500 acre sheep and beef farm, really it couldn't get any closer to my old dream.

This has really rattled me to say the least. It's all fine and dandy to have had dreams, lost dreams, dreams that change, but when someone else who never had your dream on her cards, appears and shows you what could have been, well it makes you question the grander scheme of things a bit.

I could be all wanky and say that my dreams have all come true with the four beautiful children I have, my loving husband and my place in the world ..... but I'd be lying. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't give up what I have for the world, this is my life, I wouldn't give back a thing, but it doesn't mean that I don't have dreams, old and new.

I am studying to be a Naturopath, I believe in natural and holistic approaches to health play a great part in the success of our world's future. But it is not my "dream" to be a naturopath.

I do dream of living on my own patch of land, hopefully quite a big patch, I do dream of breeding horses, of learning every day about something new, of being passionate and loving and loved. I do dream of being motivated and I dream of being beautiful to myself. I dream of living free from the shackles of depression, I dream of unbridled lust being a large factor in my marriage. I dream of growing old, but not having it easy, earning my place on the porch watching my grandkids. I dream of travelling, of seeing the places I learn about, of experiencing the things I hear about, of feeling the joy of new sights. I dream of being healthy and I dream of being free. Free to be who I want to be without the shackles of constraint, without the worry of what others think.

But most of all, I dream for the dream to make itself clear to me, for my dreams to be clear in my minds eye, for my own mind to be able to settle enough for me to actually realise what my true dreams are.....

I dream of knowing the path to that realisation.

For U

My dear friend U has asked me to surprise him, I'm using this as an opportunity to get some feedback on a very difficult issue that plagues me and will for a while, it's my skeleton in my closet:

In 1998 I had left Christchurch, aged 22 years and headed to Massey University in Palmerston North to study to become a Veterinarian. I was already a qualified veterinary nurse but knew I could achieve more and was quite desperate to get away from Christchurch and a bad triangular relationship. I looked at studying Naturopathy in Auckland or studying Veterinary Science at Massey. I chose the Veterinary because I didn't think I could comply with the wishes of the Wellpark College in Auckland that asked you to not consume alcohol in your spare time, I was a bit of a drinker at that time.

I headed to summer school at Massey early January to catch up on some Physics, Maths and Chemistry because I'd been out of the studying game for a few years.
I jumped into it feet first and absolutely loved the brain extension I was getting from the study. A couple of weeks into my Veterinary, February 22nd to be exact, I had a brief liaison with a lovely young man after an Orientation Comedy night at the Uni. Headed into town and proceeded to have my wallet stolen. I was alone and in a club in the middle of a small city where I knew no one other than the younger teens that had been living at my hostel during summer school. I had just moved into a flat the week before and was considering my options to getting home when this lovely young guy came up and started yarning away. He knew the bar staff and got them to do a check and one of them ended up finding my wallet in the alley out the back. All the money was gone but the cards were there so I was sussed. I thanked the guy by buying him a drink. We got to talking about life and study and old flames, we'd both been burnt. We decided to share a taxi as he lived in my direction. Funnily, he never got out of the taxi until my place. At that point I knew he had more in mind than sharing a cab. I thought he was really nice, not my type but a pleasant guy, into his rugby etc and I went with the flow rather than say no. I have since found through counselling that this is the classic response of a rape victim, say yes first before you get the option taken from you. He came in, we bonked at least four times over the night. In the morning he left, all I knew was his nickname, as he walked out I asked why people called him this particular nickname, he pulled out his driver's license and showed me his name and said "because my mother was cruel". His first two names were extremely uncool. I didn't even see the last one, I laughed and agreed that the nickname was better. All I knew about him, from out conversations during the night, was that he was from a certain wee town way up north, he was in his final year of a double degree at Massey and he was a year younger than me.

5 weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. This had been my only liaison with anyone (other than a pash up session with Blair a week before I left for Palmerston North, he was still a friend at this stage remember??) for months so I knew who the father was. I just didn't know who the father was!!!

I did a bit of searching, went through the graduation lists, searched through the rugby clubs via a mate, kept my eyes out at Uni, just never found him.

I then moved back to Christchurch.

In my last trimester of pregnancy I searched again, I went through the microfiche records at the public library of all the children born in 1976. My friend helped me and we got to I and gave up.

I had Peta on the 21st November, 1998. She changed my life for the better. I was independent, living on my own, doing my thing and being a great Mum.

Then when Peta was 5 months old Blair and I got together and never parted. We were old friends with a history of lust for each other and it just developed into more. He immediately became Peta's Dad and always will be. At four or five years old Peta started realising that she was a bit different in colouring to Dad and her little brother Ben. She started drawing pictures of the family at school and her and I were pink and Ben was light brown and Dad was dark brown. We knew it was time to tell her that she had a different biological father. Being the typical woman, I had a big event planned, get Ben babysat, take Peta for a special picnic and tell her. Blair was more nervous than I, the fear of rejection from her was forefront in his mind. That evening, after we'd first discussed that we needed to tell her, Blair went upstairs to say goodnight and came back down about 20 minutes later and said "It's done". What's done?? "I told her", "you fucken what???". I was gutted, this was something I had planned and had much angst over for years and here he had just waltzed up there and told her without me even being involved. He said good night to her and then asked her if she loved Daddy, she said yes. He then said, you do know you have another Dad, one that made you, Mummy was with him and they made you but he wasn't around anymore so me and Mum got together and I am your Dad now. She just smiled and said "Don't worry Dad, you're my Dad and I love you". He had the response he wanted.

She was brilliant about it, asked a few questions, does every now and then but is, all and all, quite grounded about it all. If we had done it my way it could have gone wrong with all the hype that I would have had going on. Blair did it in a subtle, without drama, sort of way and it worked brilliantly, bugger that he is.

Back to the guy.

Every now and then I would search his first two names in Old Friends of FindaFriend or one of those things and then go to the high school in the wee town he went to and try and find photos of the rugby team etc. Just to have the details for her. But was never to any avail. Then came the advent of Facebook. Last January a mate was here staying and she queried me about whether I'd ever looked into it any more. I said no, she wondered if I'd looked on Facebook, I admitted I hadn't even thought of it.

That night I, when Blair and everyone else was asleep I searched his first two names.

And there he was, my god, he was so like Peta. I txt my mate immediately, "Holy hell, what have I done??". She went on, searched him too and found out that an ex boyfriend of his was on the guy's friends list. She emailed him and said "hey, see ........... on your friend's list, i think I know him, where is he from, what's he do with himself?" Almost immediately she found out that he was living in Hong Kong and a banker and holy crap!! I knew his last name, I could contact him right there and then if I wanted to.

I told Blair about it that night, he was less than impressed that I'd gone behind his back, he felt threatened, which is fair enough, then he over reacted and said if I didn't contact the guy he would and just went all emotional and crap about it. My parents also reacted the same, "Why bother at this point, what was I hoping to achieve, Peta was quite happy, wait until she's 18 and then has the option of finding out for herself, what if this guy couldn't have kids, what if he wanted nothing to do with her but his parents were friends of a QC, and being a Hong Kong banker he would have all the money at his disposal to contest custody, it would be okay if you could be a fly on the wall watching his life for 3 months and find out what sort of person he was and then make the decision......" and on it went. I ended up letting it die a natural death and didn't mention it again. I have printed out his picture and written his details down, and details of that night, it's all in an envelope in our files marked "for Peta", should anything happen to me.

I feel justified in my decision but I also feel terrible that the guy has a child he doesn't know about. I think I am doing the right thing, I will never know, we can only but make out decisions based on the information we have at hand on any particular day..... I just hope that my skeleton in my closet doesn't come out to haunt me down the track. I definitely think he needs to know and so does Peta, New Zealand is way too small a place, she could hook up with his son at university and never know she's dating her own brother, it so easily could happen. It's a cross I bear.

A Wee Bit More.....

I took some photos of all the feral children together over the weekend and a horse for Kym, LOL. Be prepared for heaps of photos.

Your Wish is My Command....

Here we go then:

LaLa, sadly there was not one thing in my bag other than two lip glosses. I am a very minimal person but here goes the proof anyway:

Kym, I don't have a horse, there are a couple across the river that belong to the landlord's daughter, I can take photos of them next time I'm there, your yard photos are grouped amongst the house ones.

Cazzie, I did attempt this but my camera only records 25secs so I flagged it but took shitloads of photos for you to get the idea.

Front lawn looking to house:

house end of the driveway:

Bill the rooster and Salt the hen (there is another one called Pepper)

Some little purple flowers at the base of an apricot tree.

Back of the house and the kids play equipment.

View to the right off the verandah, the property we are on goes all the way across the river up to where the forest starts in far distance:

The shed where I sort the recycling:

Side of house, bay window is in the kitchen:

Double internal access garage, yeah right, LOL:

The two youngest ferals in the back area:

The beautiful patch of fragrant violets by the driveway, near the willow tree:

At the edge of the lawn looking up the driveway towards the road:

Looking left off the verandah

Standing at the sliding door looking out over the front lawn and verandah:

The back door showing how bloody big the tree in the front is:

The end of the road, where it goes to the river:

If you are looking down the driveway this is what you see to the right, these are organic sheep grazing in a certified organic orchard, the front orchard.

This is looking back up the little road to the main road, everything to the left is the property we are on, everything to the right is psychotic Mr Brown's, his trees are the ones handing precariously over the our road, he didn't get them sorted for a week, and had plans for them to stay like this for 3 weeks, he had told the contractor there was no hurry, he's a barstard:

Looking down the driveway to the Ranch house:

Looking left from the front lawn to the lower orchard which is starting to blossom:

Spiky, yours is a post on it's own, coming very soon.

U, your surprise is my skeleton in my closet. I will reveal all in your own dedicated post.

Chris, have to round the kids up in all their feral glory and get a nice family photo, coming very soon.

Ute, good god woman, do you think I'd arse around with a blog if I owned a ute?? You will have to be content with my property shots above and this cream yourself Holden:

Anne, you're covered.

Middle Child, kitchen and wardrobe as requested, your family shots are previously shown.

The fire in the kitchen with my little toaster pantry with all my oils, herbs etc and on the top shelf is the medicine and herbs.

And another shot




My big farm kitchen

The wardrobe

It has a window in it, nice!Note the complete lack of clothing, Blair's is the lower rack, mine the higher!!

The monthly wall planner in the kitchen

Kitchen again

Kitchen looking back towards the lounge
Kitchen look out through the sliding doors to the massive laundry and the back door.