Jellybean Poo(l)

This morning, the four of us drove to a waterhole, to go swimming before it got too hot. I love summer.

I had visions of a fun morning. I'd even thought to cut up watermelon and bring it along - and I am *so* not that kind of mother. We arrived to a haze ... of cigarette smoke. It was eleven in the morning and I had to move empty beer bottles out of the way before we could sit on our towels. I was cranky at Dave, who was cranky at Max, who was cranky at Rocco. Happy Australia Day!

 ..... who sat there, oblivious, eating a whole punnet of strawberries. Intermittently screaming out "JELLY BEANS!" Because we were at the Jellybean Pool. And I know him so well, that I bought a packet of jellybeans too. I knew he would be expecting them.

Max watched teenagers jumping off the rock. We all went in for a swim. I don't like waterholes - not being able to see where I swim; standing on leaves and sticks, murkiness. I wanted to shout out, "MIRANDA!" But nobody, least of all Dave, would get my joke.

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Rocco did the BIGGEST POO in his swimmer nappy and I didn't know so started taking it off. Sat him down on the towel really quickly, mouthing to Dave frantically. POO. Dave sighed .... but totally saved the day, helped me rip the sides down, acting normal so nobody would stare at us. He stood him up while I quickly wiped his backside with the towel and wrapped the nappy up in it - all in one quick motion. We laughed .... Rocco's poo incident of the day breaking the ice between us.

I knew it was time to leave when the teenagers started yelling out to each other across the water .... "Chuck us a cigarette ya softc*ck!"

On the way back we passed this shop and laughed heartily again, at the beautiful Australiana display - I liked the tissue box cover the most.

Before we got back to the car I threw the whole nappy/towel package in the garbage bin. It just couldn't be saved. Police and ambulances then fled past, and I wondered if somebody got hurt jumping off the rocks. I hope not.

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Now THIS is Australian ... Bliss N Eso singing "Addicted."

Slumpy Strikes Back!

Just now, tonight ... I have decided that doing this dance is officially number one on my bucket list. My bucket list only has one thing on it at a time ... that's how life is - fickle. No point putting 100 things on there, that's greedy and full of expectations. One at a time.

One day - soon, I promise ... I will go to the steps of Town Hall in Sydney - hell, maybe even the Opera House. With a boom box, and someone to film me from far away so it looks like I'm by myself. Woogs, you in?

From one of my favourite films of all time:



I'll just put curlers in my hair the night before .... and use the glasses I still have. The ones I wore in 1987, the same year I was wondering why I had no boyfriend.

I'm learning this dance. There's online tutorials. You know I'm not joking, don't you?

Why? Because the world is too hard. We need more ridiculous things.

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Think I'm digging my way out of my latest slump, finally. These comments on a post written by one amazing woman to another helped.

It's not often my jaded mind gets blown away.

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I am a woman who has over THREE THOUSAND emails in her inbox.

The only way I can admit that is by writing it in the third person. If I owe you an email, I'm sorry. If I haven't commented back .... I'm sorry. It's me, not you. I'm an arsehole. I fail at life.

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But the good news is ... at the bottom of my otto bin is a packet of cigarettes filled with water. With only one missing! I decided to take up smoking again but couldn't do it. I win at life!

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Blogger Australia recently asked me to come and talk to them about .... blogging. I'm waiting for them to find out what I'm *really* like, and they'll mysteriously never contact me again. I hate myself. I lose at life!

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Tonight I cleared out my office for the first time in six months. It was a start. That Woolf woman was really onto something.

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I wrote a product review here. Dave thinks that Kmart will be cranky at me for giving the product away ... I think it only makes them look good. Swear to God Max found ten bucks straight afterwards.

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Tonight, I made Dave clean up Rocco's poo (in the shower). Dave was aghast. I welcomed him to my world.

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Lisa Stone has beautiful hair. She is also the boss of BlogHer. She asked me to write a piece on what it was like as an Australian - a foreigner, attending the conference last year. You can read it here.
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It's midnight, so I guess that makes it Australia Day. Or, depending on the colour of your skin ... Invasion Day.

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Wherever, whoever you are .... you have the right to remain ridiculous.

Sometimes it's the only thing that gets us through.

Peace.

Mess

I want to write a swirly, beautiful post but I can't because I keep getting interrupted having to stick panty liners on a two-year olds arm.

"I NEED A BAND-ACHE MUMMY! MY ARM GOT A OWIE!" I almost refused, but that would mean an intense ten-minute tantrum time-out situation. So he's happily walking around the house, with Max too scared to ask me what it actually IS. Because he knows I'll answer him honestly.

So when Dave and Tim arrive home shortly, they'll look at me in disgust, like there's something wrong with me, but in fact, sometimes it's just good parenting to stick a panty liner on your kids arm. Choose your battles, right?

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Coming home after a month away was a novelty at first - oh, I remember packing the dishwasher, ha! Like I was playing house, in one of the cubbies I used to make in third class. Now it's quickly a drag again. A drag in the most wonderful way, looking back on all the roads I could have taken and all the differences it could have made.

Yesterday I had to take Rocco to the RTA with me. On the back of our ticket he drew his first named picture - "Mum, it'th Buth and Woody. And Boowseye."

I've kept it, and put it on the fridge, will keep it forever. It will always remind me of the poor lady counting out all these numbers, in confusion. "367? 368? 369? Ummmm, 370? Who IS next?" I looked down to see Rocco clutching a huge handful of tickets because he liked pressing the button. I pretended I knew nothing of it. Sorry, lady.

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This morning I was in the middle of the deepest, vivid dream - Dave had gone off the rails, and I was searching for him, and all these bad guys were chasing me in the city and I was naked. And I didn't know where my children were, and it was terrifying.

I woke up, got up, went to the toilet, made a coffee, and came back to make my bed. And knew EXACTLY where my children had been.

Bless this mess.

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Max just asked .... "Mum, do we actually have any GOOD food to eat?" So I have to go. Please go send some love to my friend Lori, as she continues to write on her blog. Her posts and comment threads are blowing my mind.

Love to you. Bless your mess. xo

God Bites Boy; Satan Almost Bites Woman.

HELLO!

I did a vlog instead of writing this stuff down ... that way, I'm not putting words out onto the internet forever. I can just delete the video. When I'm all "normal" and regret saying what I said.



When Rocco was in Bali, he kept trying to climb up onto this one special temple. I told him no, no - it's very special, he wasn't allowed. He broke free from my arms, ran up onto it, tripped, and scraped all up his arms. God bit him. The Balinese people laughed.

Here's some pictures .... my goodness Bali is a spectacle. Rocco went pretty well on the plane. Sort of.

He loved the pool.

I didn't love the coffee so much, but it looked good.

Tiered rice fields.

A crazy shop mannequin.

Rocco really knows how to put the coco in Coco Pops.

Really safe and legitimate, I'm sure.

He climbed on everything. In the end I gave up caring .... that's when God bit him.

Then they just tried to bite each other.

I may be completely sober, but I can still dance in a birdcage in a nightclub at Kuta at 3am in the morning. MUTTON!

Max and I, on the bike. We both got Bali belly, and took it in turns on the toilets, passing like ships in the night.

At the coffee plantation.

Highway Patrol ..... I felt *SO* safe!

Monkey - meet Monkey.

The architecture is just so beautiful and open.

Redemption doesn't hurt at ALL!!

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His name was Jordan. He was thirteen - I bet he had the cutest knobbly knees.

The Red Cross Queensland Relief Appeal.

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So you're a recovering addict? Golf clap, dude.

Lori, her Ramblings, and her Love.

This Balinese Temple was at the villa where we stayed for the past ten days. Often, I took my boys there. Offered a flower each (hibiscus), I taught them to hold their palms together and bend forward to acknowledge God. Buddha. Nature. Mother Earth. Whatever the hell it is you may believe in .... I want my boys to have something to believe in. I want them to know - during their darkest days - and they will have their darkest days, nobody escapes ... I want them to find a piece of solace in something Bigger than themselves, whatever hard thing it is they are going through.

My Australian blogging friend Lori is going through dark days. Really dark. I weep for her.

I met her at an AMB bloggy meet-up in Sydney last year. We've spoken on the phone, emailed ... she even made me up an Edenland button and refused any money for it. Said that for her, it was like doing cross-stitch. I even asked her to change the banner outline from green to black ... she did, laughing. "How can you not like green?" I said mate, I fucking hate green.

She blogs a lot - she knows a lot of things techie. One day I hope to maybe help her out in that area, even get a business cracking. She should charge people for buttons, for a start. She knows a LOT of cool stuff.

She has two adorable, beautiful children.

Her husbands funeral is tomorrow.

My heart is so heavy for her. It's a shock, a sudden, awful thing that happens in life.

Please go give her some love. I believe in the power of social media with all my heart ... to some people it must be odd, to write your life online. To others - like us, it is as normal and as necessary as breathing. I hope Lori writes through it. Writing is one of the most powerful tools in the world.

On the last day I was in Bali, I needed to acknowledge her, her Tony, and her two wee ones. I went to the Temple with my big tears,nothing compared to Lori's tears right now. And I offered my prayers, my condolences, my thoughts, compassion, love. Everything I could. She needs every last skerrick of all our love.

Lori, I am - like so many other people - loving really hard on you right now. I will be thinking of you tomorrow. I haven't stopped thinking of you for days. I left my Offering to Tony in that Balinese Temple ... but before I did, I took four rocks from the circle, to give to you. To symbolise your family of four. Even though he is not walking this earth, on this sphere ... you will always, always be a family of four. Nothing can change that. Nobody can take that away from you.


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Later on, we were having breakfast in a cafe before our flight. I saw this carving and thought of Lori ... going forward in life, guiding her two children.




Lori. It's hard. But I know you are ok. Especially when you're not. There is no rhyme or reason to be made, sometimes. Out of anything.

I'm here, mate. Now, tomorrow, next month - six months, a year. Always.

Go softly, with a quiet strength. Break when you need to - it takes huge courage to break. Broken people are the best kinds of people. Because then you get to build yourself back up again. More amazing and more wise than ever before.

Love Eden XOXOX

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

I spend my life running away from my shadow .. this guy wants to chase his. One day he will catch it - the Universe will get sucked inside out.

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Last night Max and I sat on the couch, watching the fireworks in Sydney Harbour. Fireworks are never as good on TV, but we were amazed anyway. “WOW! Mum .... imagine if they did this at the end of every single day. That would be so cool. It’s the end of another day! Woo-hoo. PHHP-CRACK-POW-POW.”

To celebrate the end of every day ... we made it through! I love a nine-year-old’s perspective on the world.

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We have in our possession five travel pillows, five packed suitcases, five excited hearts. Our flight to Bali leaves today. Tim has discovered motojumping in a Balinese brochure. You ride a motorbike off a cliff, attached to a bungee cord. No pools are fenced in Bali ... we have a heavy duty lifejacket for Rocco, he is a wild man from Borneo around a body of water. There is a water theme park there that would not pass any safety requirements in the western world. The guys will love it.

I will be praying to all the Gods, that my family comes back in one piece.

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Yesterday, I wanted to make one of my famous non-alcoholic drinks for an alcoholic. “Don’t buy mint. There’s plenty in the garden.” So I didn't. I went to make my famous drink ... Dave’s mother was technically right.

Unfortunately the mint was brown, crunchy, and covered in spiders. Cheers!

She lives in the same town as my own grandparents once lived, many moons ago. We went to Soldiers Beach yesterday .... I took the same rockclimbing track I used to take as a kid. The rocks are all the same. Maybe I am too. Maybe we spend our entire lives getting back to the state of freedom we felt in our youth.

I asked Dave to drive past their old house, on a whim. It’s exactly the same!

I came here for many school holidays ... nanny would make pikelets for dinner laden with brown sugar and lemon. My grandfather (Grumpy) would tell me stories about Shamus the leprechaun who lived at the bottom of the garden and I believed him. He used to write poems and stories and so I did, too. Nan would tell me I was good at it.

I miss their love.

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Max and I lit sparklers just before midnight last night, in the dark. Rocco and Dave were in bed, Tim was on the phone. We both wrote our names in the sky, then each made a wish. I wished for Max to have a better, happier year this year. Later, he whispered into my ear his wish.

“Mum, I wished that this year is just so better than last year – not busy.”

At the top of my new years resolutions is to make that boy pikelets for dinner. Laden with brown sugar, and lemon, and love.

Happy new year to you .... you haven’t made any mistakes yet! It’s a blank slate – what are you going to do with it? (Hint: ANYTHING.)