I have so many posts in drafts it’s beyond a joke. I start and then don’t get around to finishing and I then I just decide to start again because I am not in that space any more and it feels false or something. Glad of the glimpse into my inner workings? I thought you would be.

On the weekend, Beefcake and my brother-in-law helped my Mum move into her new house. She is still guided by the habits of the last few decades. Sometimes she’ll say something or rather that she’s planning to do something and we all have to explain to her why that’s not a good idea and it would be just as easy to take option b, which will break these patterns and spare her all sorts of stress. She’s made a lot of progress though and having her in her own house is such a big step, we are all very relieved.

I’m not really comfortable calling my father by name or calling him my father, really, so from now on I will refer to him as B.

B has been re-detained in hospital under another 21 day order. He will be in hospital now until the middle of March and he may well be detained again. I suspect that they will have trouble getting any medication to work for him now, he has been heading in that direction for many years (in my opinion). Despite being very heavily medicated he was becoming more and more unstable, with each passing month.

The restraining order becomes final on Wednesday. My mother told me with a heartbreaking smile that it is their 37th wedding anniversary. There is no correct way to respond to that.

My nightmares and insomnia have worsened but I have recently read that this may be a side-effect of the arthritis medication I am taking. I see the Rheum on Wednesday and unfortunately, after three months, I have seen no improvement. In fact, my arthritis is worsening, with new joints now affected.

I’m very disappointed. I have decided that if the Rheum says the other drug options are not compatible with breastfeeding then I will wean Grub. She is 20 months old and I wanted to get to 2 years but my pain is so bad that I feel a little bit trapped. I am sad but I’m sure she’d rather have a functional Mummy than boob…….Ummmm, maybe not, but that’s what she’s getting.

I had an excellent GP visit last week. Not my usual GP, but one I’ve taken the kids to before and he was so sympathetic to my need to keep getting pain med prescriptions that he gave me the mother of all authorities (means I can get large amounts of pain med very cheaply on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme). The size of the script is almost comical but we discussed the next step up for pain management and let’s just say I hope I don’t ever have to go there. It is a relief I won’t have to worry about it running out. Usually when it does I tell Beefcake that I am going to try and go without for a while. I get more and more grumpy and eventually give in and go to the GP.

This time he rang and made an appointment for me before that could happen.

He’s learning.

For a long while I have lusted after one of these:

I love it. It is pretty, it comes in a range of lovely colours but this is my fave. It is limey green, green makes me happy and peaceful and serene. The thing about it is, it’s not got the most powerful motor. It’s a bit of a baby motor, if truth be told. Although I love it and would love someone to be willing to spend that amount of money on buying one for me (by that amount I mean lots of dollars by the by), I wondered if there were not something better out there.

It turns out that in Australia we get a bit of a raw deal actually. There are a shit ton of fabulous stand mixers made by Kitchenaid that have tougher motors and better features. The artisan (above) has plastic dough hook and paddle, it is a tilt arm mixer and the motor is a touch pathetic (for the price). I’m a little bit torn. The artisan comes in an array of pretty colours that make me go “oooooooh shiny!” but I just feel they lack substance.

This, does not lack substance:

This is the Professional 600 series. It has a much bigger motor and is a bowl lift mixer, which I have read would be better for my arthritis (grasping at straws much?). It has a stainless steel dough hook and paddle.  It does not come in the same array of pretty enamels but I like the one pictured here or there is a super glossy black or slightly matte black that are both very appealing.

Now, here’s where it gets tricky. You cannot buy this in Australia. You cannot buy it in the UK. You can only buy this baby in the US, with their 110v power. Cue long and very confusing discussions and research of stepdown voltage converters (which cost eleventy seven billion dollars) and may or may not address the issue of frequency as well, which may or may not burn out the motor if it is not addressed correctly.

The problem is that now I have want. Very much want.

I also have such a thing as a dangerously irresponsible and sweetly indulgent husband. It is not often that I get true want. Just occasionally I become so obsessed with an object that I think about it night and day and want, want, want! Truthfully I usually worry about buying myself a new mascara or replacements for my holey undies.

Beefcake has told me to buy it when we get paid. I have told him no, we should save and maybe he could get it for my birthday.

The thing is, it’s a big investment for something that may ultimately not work properly ever or may end up needing a new motor to make it work here but………want?

I haven’t been able to even open my laptop really for the past few days. It felt as though opening it would open my world to the babble of all those voices. That I would have to respond. That I would have to say something of my own. I still haven’t decided how to choose which parts I am able to share and which I just am not.

I am very relieved and happy to say that my Mum did not return to live with my father.

I wish that I could say that she has stayed away because she has finally broken free, that she will never go back. She says that this is the case but it has been such a long road that I will need some time before I can trust it.

His state of mind continued to deteriorate.

I can’t or won’t (I’m not sure which) go into the details of it. A friend told me that it is all so bizarre and dramatic that you couldn’t make it up. That’s true but there is nothing funny or light hearted that I can pull out of all that tangled mess.

It took many years for me to realise that I need not carry shame for who he is, for the things that he has done. I feel so angry that he has invaded my life with that shame again. I can’t write the things that he has done and that infuriates me.

Thankfully it all finally came to a head and he was arrested and subsequently placed in a secure facility. Not before terrorising many people. Actually, it was the fact that he finally did something overtly threatening to a stranger in a public place and commited petty theft that got him arrested. Without that perhaps it would still be going on.

Despite repeated calls (from many different sources) ACIS have continued to buy all of his manipulative bullshit. To them he is a nice, if unwell, man who hasn’t been supported properly by his family. One member of the team actually told her that “it’s a recipe for disaster leaving him alone like that”, whilst they were inspecting the damage he had done to the house. Because it’s her fault. Naturally. When a violent alcoholic psychopath is threatening to kill you, you stay and care for them.

She was granted a restraining order today.

She has a lawyer.

It looks like he will be in a secure facility for some time yet.

We are slowly getting my Mum convinced of how to proceed. She is shell shocked. She is traumatised. She has been abused for so long that it will take her a long time to see things clearly.

She is alive, though, and I am just holding my breath that she will stay away. I hope he’s done enough now that she will never go back.

I hope.

Sometimes when I sit down to write I have trouble. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to say. I do, mostly, but some things are hard to put into words. Sometimes I feel that a brainstorming style word cloud would better convey the disarray that exists in my tiny, tiny head.

Where to begin?

My mother. Those of you who read regularly will know that I recently severed ties with her. Well, to be honest, my exact words to her were “I can’t see you for a while”. I just couldn’t bring myself to make a more final statement than that. Not with her. For my father it’s easy. I know that I will never want to see him again. It is pure relief to have him out of my life and I would not go back to what was. Not for anything.

My mother though. It is so much more complex. While she was living with him, I told myself, I had to separate myself. For my sanity, for my heart. It had to be done. I feel guilty at how brilliantly easy and peaceful this last little while has been without her around. I have found more serenity than I have felt in a long time.

Around Christmas she reappeared in subtle ways. At first asking to buy gifts for the children. I thought about denying her that but then decided that I couldn’t do that. Either to her or the children.

When I saw her on Christmas day she seemed so fragile and small and….. on the edge. Just at the edge of tolerance for what life could throw at her. I couldn’t bear to tell her that she had to continue to stay away. Instead I told her that we would see her again. I held the little woman and said that it would be okay. That she could see her grandkids and us and we would be there for her again. I felt very ashamed at the gratitude she showed me then. She has done some things that were not okay, I don’t always respect her actions but I hadn’t meant to cause her the kind of pain that I saw.

She was still living with him though. Telling us that she was making plans to leave, that things had progressed and that they were moving towards the sale of the house and separation. This, to my mind, is far too sane a path to take in this situation but we just haven’t been able to get through to her.

Thursday.

Thursday night I get a call from Patchouli! (my sister). Have you had Mum’s message? She sounded very shaken, not okay. My first thoughts are always what has he done?, what has happened?, is she hurt?

The message says that nothing has happened. Nothing dramatic. She has left though, is staying with my aunt. Nothing dramatic but she just feels that he has drifted so much closer to that edge. He is not really there at all, he is becoming psychotic, he is warning her to get out, leave the house. He has done strange things. She knows she just can’t go there again.

I tell her he is dangerous. She doesn’t want to believe this but agrees that it could be true. She has left.

He has gone around the house and smashed things while she has been out and then hidden the evidence. Mostly inconsequential things but also a beautiful statuette that was his grandmothers. I have always loved it. I know that he did too.

He stands in the yard and stares at the sky, muttering to himself for hours.

Realistically he is barely holding it together. He is already psychotic.

And people? Do you know why? The antipsychotic drug was causing some (quite bad) long term physical side effects and so the fucking arsehole psych took him off of them. Sent this man who, without anti-psychotic drugs is, well, psychotic, home to live with my mother. Knowing they are in the midst of separating. Knowing he has planned, let’s just say violent things before in a state of psychosis.

No extra monitoring or plan in place for his care.

If it weren’t so exhaustingly predictable it would be laughable. Does he think that my father will recognise his own psychosis and trot himself off to Glenside? Yeah, realistic.

There is nothing that anyone can do. The last time that we tried to have him sectioned under very similar circumstances it was a farce. They had “lost” all record of his two previous sections. His doctor would not recommend section as it was a breach of trust with his patient (no, not joking). We just had to wait until he attended a psych appointment and the psych was able to talk him into voluntary hospitilisation.

It makes me feel so…. tired.

I wish that I cared to intervene but I don’t. I will not write here what I wish to happen.

I am not letting myself hope too much. We have been here before and she has returned to live with him. If we can just get her to make a decent break this time though….

Maybe.

I’ve tried to write this birthday post several times and here we are at the eleventh hour and it is still not up.

It’s hard to put into words all of the things I want to say.

There are mixed emotions for me, you see.

Fourteen is going to be an interesting year, I can tell.

Maybe not easy but amazing nonetheless as I watch you grow from boy into man.

Try and go easy on me.

Please.

Happy birthday sweet boy.

Fourteen.

Oh dear.

I don’t know where all of my time goes. I seriously have barely opened my computer since I last blogged. My reader is beyond clogged with everybody’s happy Christmas posting.

I read all of those vampire books. Just in case you haven’t read them. I urge you to steer clear. I should have known better, they were appalling, I really can’t see what people are going on about. I will do everything in my power to make sure that my daughters don’t read them. I can’t imagine a worse model for teen relationships than the one that’s presented in these books. So many things about them annoyed me, way too many elements to list here. Woefully written tripe, I say. Of course there was no need for me to read them all once I had discovered that the first one was awful – I know I have only myself to blame for that stupid little bit of obsessive behaviour. Take my advice though, spare yourself.

I have eaten (probably more than) my own weight in assorted choclates and biscuits and brownies after baking up a storm in the lead up to Christmas. We always over cater but this was beyond ridiculous.

I am always a bit shell-shocked at this time of year, it takes me at least until mid-January to register that it’s all over and there is no more planning to be done or presents to wrap or feasts to cook. I half expect another celebration to spring out from behind a bush and surprise me. It doesn’t help that Rhubarb’s birthday is on the 3rd of Jan. Do you have any idea how hard it is to think up presents to buy and muster up the energy to cook a special birthday meal and treats after the long haul of Christmas? Hard.

Anyway, I am planning on being a better, more consistent blogger next year and so I’m mounting a pre-emptive strike on blogging. See, I’m a planner, me.

Happy New Year everyone. Thank you to all those who have read and commented here this year. Blogging is such a joyous and rewarding part of my life, thanks to you.

I shall be having a leisurely meal with the kidlets and perhaps enjoying a glass of wine if I am lucky. I hope that someone out there is doing some hardcore partying in my stead.

See you in 2010.

So, um, yeah. I would post more pictures but I am unwilling to take the risk that someone may be eating or something. I look so diseased now that my husband won’t kiss me. Because he’s not shallow at all. Arsehole.

Admittedly there is a weeping pox sore just above my mouth but I have told him that I actually tolerate worse on a daily basis and I stand by that because boys are gross.

I do look like a rabid, oozing swamp creature. Really, I nearly made my Father-in-law leap away in fright. Not pretty.

Nobody else has been struck down as yet. We are just hanging in there to see if any of the kids break out all poxy. Pudding’s temp has come down today and he appears to be getting better so I am sure that is a sign that they are all going to be covered in pustules in the morning. It’s just the way these things work.

On the upside I seem to have stopped getting new spots and I actually think it’s kind of a mild case of pox. I have seen some photos of people literally covered from head to toe in pox so I think I’ve gotten away lightly. My only issue is that some of mine are so large or have kind of blended together with others and I just can’t imagine that they’ll heal very nicely. I’m going to look pretty interesting for the next couple of weeks. No amount of make-up is going to cover these babies.

Also, who knew that weepy, crusty, itchy, painful spots on your skin would be so uncomfortable? I mean, I guess I never really thought about it before but they really feel awful, actually. Along with my mild temp and slight breathing difficulties I think it’s safe to say I am NOT enjoying the chicken pox.

The outlaws delivered us some dinner tonight, which was nice. Kind of annoying though because if I am unwell then they just assume they should help out because naturally the poor widdle baby Beefcake could not handle cooking for the family while I’m sick, oh no. If he’s stricken with man-flu then they just leave me to it. Bastards. Still, hand delivered take-away dinner that we didn’t have to pay for – I am a moron for complaining.

P.S. When I told Beefcake that I told the whole internet that he wouldn’t kiss me he asked if I would change it if he came and kissed me now – I said I would add this post-script. How funny is that though – he is worried you will all judge him harshly. I’m sure that can be turned to my advantage…