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Nightmares

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I missed yesterday’s 365 post; its theme was “nightmares”. I’ve got two big ones that I thought I’d share anyway. Maybe if I write them out as I remember them, I might be able to forget them.

Since having my son I’ve had two Riley (my son) related nightmares that really freaked me out, enough that my husband had to wake me up because I was screaming in my sleep, enough that parts of them stuck in my head once I was fully awake and enough that I can’t forget them or the way they made me feel.

Werewolf Outbreak; the first dream I’m going to writing about. It happened when my son was still a newborn and It was like being stuck in a horror movie.  I can remember running from my husband carrying my newborn baby as had been bitten and was turning into a werewolf. My mother was killed, half eaten; it really fucks you up seeing your mother like that, even if it is imaginary. I found my dad and we were running. We returned to his house to get supplies. I can remember him telling me to hide in roof and being terrified! I was hiding in the roof trying to keep a newborn quiet as a werewolf smashed through the house and killed my father. I can remember being stuck up in the roof and realising my son was so quiet because he had died. That’s when my husband had to wake me up because I was screaming hysterically.

Yep! Pure horror movie shit. I don’t even think I’d been reading or watching anything at the time that could have triggered it. I lay awake the rest of the night horrified at my brains ability to scare the fuck out of me.

Where is the car; the second dream I’m going to write about is one I had last week, it’s all fragmented, almost like still images. Before I tell you about this dream that haunted me for days after and still horrifies and baffles me I’d like to note – I have never left a small child or animal in a car and I never will intentionally – but I always forget where I parked my car.

So I’m running late to a wedding. I can’t find a car park. I dump my car and run to the church. On the outside the church looks small. There’s a man standing the door I give my apologies for being late. I realise my sons not with me. I’ve left my baby boy in the car. I Panic. I Run and Run and Run. I can’t find my car. I can’t remember where I parked my car. I run back to the church and go inside to ask for help. Inside the church is massive, with rows and rows of people.  I’m ignored. I run searching, screaming for my car, willing it to be found. I see my car. My car is empty. I run back to the church. The weddings over. A nun is holding a dead baby. It’s my son.

Days and days I couldn’t get the images out of my head – WHY does my brain to this to me!! WHY!!

I’ve even tried to rationalise this dream. I’ve got two cousins getting married soon, so that’s where the wedding would have come from. Obviously like any parent it terrifies me to think of something bad every happening to my son. Maybe I’m afraid with so much going on at the moment that I could get so distracted and accidently leave my son in the car, I don’t even want to think about that. Normally I forget he’s not with me, I turn around to talk to him and he’s not there. AHHHHHHHHH Nightmares, yep and you can guess I was screaming with this dream to.

Quick! Ones escaped out the door!

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This is a poem my friend Jody Gardam wrote about helping out at a friend’s farm.

It’s a beautiful poem, So Aussie, So Jody 🙂

With the sound of the generator and the pouring rain,

I forget the hard work that’s about to begin

I am mesmerized watching the work of the shearer,

Thinking about the end of the day getting nearer

Sweeping the floor, learning the way,

Hearing new words that the shearers say

Gather up the fleece, toss it in the air,

hopefully landing it on the table, it takes some flair!

Counting the sheep, hearing the lambs,

The smell of the lanoline on my hands.

Quick! Ones escaped out the door!

Have to go corner it, catch it and bring it back to the floor.

Only a few left now, about eight or nine,

Still laughing and joking with these friends of mine.

Wool in the bales, on the floor and in my hair,

Every place you look, there’s wool everywhere!

My first day as a roustabout was memorable and fun,

But thank God its home time now and the day is done!

20140220-132618.jpg

By Jody Gardam

Jody’s on twitter @ellymental80

Publishing Poetry

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I’m in the process of putting together and publishing two poetry collections; one entitled The World Around Me and the other My Mind The Menace.

I haven’t been posting much poetry lately and the above is the reason. I’m writing this post to keep myself on track and hold myself accountable to this task. I haven’t managed to work on the project for the last two months, I’ve been flat out.  My son has started swimming lessons, going to day care and the older he gets the more of my time he needs, yeah I know excuses excuses, and really I’ve been spending any spare time reading. Like I said I’m writing this post and putting it out there so you can help keep me on track.

The World Around Me will be a collection of my poems about the things I Feel, See and Love.

My Mind The Menace Will be a collection of poems written in my darker moments (to remind us all that no emotion is permanent and moving forward is always possible).

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

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Post 41 of 365: Today’s post ask us to write about something we know we should do but don’t.

This is the first 365 Writing Prompt Post I’ve managed to do for February, so maybe I should say; I Should do my 365 daily post to stretch myself and improve my writing. In my defense I’ve just had way too much going on and my writing has taken a back seat.

There are endless things I should do but don’t:

  1. Exercise more – I don’t think I need to explain this one.
  2. Wash my dogs more often – Poor dirty doggies, I think the effort that has to go into washing Buster has something to do with it. Our three year old female wolfhound cross Ellie loves water, be it swimming or rolling in puddles, so washing her isn’t an issue. Our fourteen year old male wolfhound cross Buster on the other hand hates water. If you’re walking Buster past a body of water larger than a small puddle he will pull at full strength in the opposite direction to get away from it. At full strength Buster is stronger than me, regardless of his age he is a big strong dog, who has a wonderful temperament and is very loving, except when it comes to water. We have to tie him to the clothes line to wash him and you always end up tangled in the rope yourself. He will run around and around the clothes line until there is no rope left. He bucks and barks and really doesn’t enjoy it. He has gotten better as he’s gotten older, he’ll give up after a while on fighting getting washed now as long as he get heaps of tummy rubs during the event to keep him calm. Buster was already six years old when I first met him, as my husband already had him before we met. My husband purchased Buster from a mate’s farm when he was about two, he had been a working dog. Shane says that Buster has always been this way with water. I think that maybe as a young pup he might have nearly drowned in a dam or something.
  3. Try to Swear less – I’m fucking terrible, ask anyone who knows me personally not professionally. I do try and keep my language in check at work. If I’m with people I’m comfortable with or I get a few drinks into me or I hurt myself, then the ‘Bad Words’ come flying out.
  4. Put money aside for a raining day – My husband is a Spend Now Worry Later kind of person, it drives me nuts. Trying to get savings in the bank is nearly impossible these days, it’s always one thing after another. I have set my husband and myself some strict rules of late so we can attempt to rectify this one.
  5. Look after myself better – I don’t think I need to explain this one either. Most mothers put their own needs, health and wellbeing last, hell most women put their own needs last.
  6. Drive slower – Now I don’t fly around doing 100 in a 50 zone or anything and I DO slow down for school zones,  but If I’ve got to get from A to B I just want to get there immediately!! I don’t try to speed, but I do. I’m not going to give you a list of bullshit excuses. I know it’s bad. The end.
  7. Clean my car more often – It’s filthy. I love the way it looks with a freshly washed exterior and vacuumed interior, but I don’t love the having to do it part.

Ok so the list isn’t endless – These are the first things that popped into my mind.

My son is going to be an artist?

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I just finished cleaning up after my seven month old son Riley made me a finger painting, on the bathroom tiles, with his own spew.

I was in the bathroom and Riley was sitting on the floor next to me, right when I was unable to grab him he vomited (milk spit up) and proceeded to rub it around the tiles and make patterns. He made a rather large mess on the floor and was looking up at me smiling proudly.

He just frowned at me as I picked him up and moved him then continued to clean up his ‘art’.

Oh the Joy of Parenthood.

 

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Selfie

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When I hear or read the term ‘Selfie’ I immediately think of drunk young women taking photos in pub toilets with their girlfriends or little teenagers dressed like underage prostitutes taking photos of themselves in their bathroom mirrors or even muscle bound men wanting to so off their guns.

So it’s was nice to see some more artististic versions like the photo given as an example for this weeks challenge (Link Bellow).

I hate my photo being taken and my form of a selfie is more like this, me just being silly >>IMG_5724

 

I’ve had to learn to get over my photophobia though as i’m always taking selfies with my son these days. So here is a Self Portrait I just took, I really couldn’t think of anything very artistic to do with it, I don’t have any interesting reflective surfaces etc around me at the moment.

. Selfie Me

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/weekly-photo-challenge-selfie

Writing Workshop

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Today I attended a Newcomers Writing Workshop run by The Hunter Writers Centre. We talked a lot about different forms of writing, finding our own voice, practice exercises and ways to improve our writing.

We did a Memoir Exercise in which we had thirty minutes to write out a memory, then we read them aloud and dissected them as group. I really enjoyed hearing all the different things we’d all dredged up from our memories. The memory I picked out, well I’ve just posted it as its own post – http://sarahalison27.org/2014/02/01/learning-to-drive/

We did a Random Photo Exercise where a bunch of photos were spread out and we had fifteen minutes to write a short piece drawn from one of the photos. It took me awhile to pick a photo. The photo I did go with was of a man wearing a hat in a 1950’s style convertible automobile. I just focused on the guy and his hat >>>>

I slid down and slumped back into the cars seat. I was wearing a black bowler hat pulled down to partly obscure my face, but not so far down that I couldn’t see. I has hiding out in an anonymous looking black sedan with out of town number plates.

I was keeping tabs on a young girl named Audrey for my boss, she was his daughter. She didn’t like her father interfering with her life, so I was tasked with the job to tail her from time to time and keep tabs on who she was hanging out with

He was at her place again, that boy named Bob Brown. That filthy no good rat was harassing her again. I could see him through the window. I drove off. I’d report what I saw to my boss later tonight.

She was a lovely young girl, but she had terrible taste when it came to men. Her last boyfriend had put her in hospital, then my boss and I had put him in an underwater grave.

My boss was a powerful guy, not a fella to be messed with.

<<<< And that’s as far as I got.

I really did enjoy myself today and everyone there seemed to get something out of the workshop. Now I’ve just got to sit down and write out the scribbled notes and advice I took down and look into some of the things we talked about. I think I’ll definitely be joining the Prose group run by the HWC. Today was a fun, entertaining and interesting day :-).

Learning to drive

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Memory: Learning to drive.

My father is a very calm man, but I’ve never seen him as stressed as when he was trying to teach me to drive.

He was in the process of fixing up an old Manuel Toyota Corolla for me, when I first got my learners licence. He had previously let me drive around in country paddocks in his 4WD Patrol. But after the first time we took his rather wide and powerful Nissan Patrol on the road he decided he was going to get me a small automatic car with power steering and he quickly sold the Corolla and got a Ford Laser. The Laser was immaculate once he was done fixing it up. I loved that Laser. It was nice and easy to drive.

I should add that my dad is a panel beater and this was back in the day when you could buy a write-off and repair it, which is exactly what he did with the Corolla and the Laser.

My dad refused to try and teach me to park, so he paid a driving instructor with a Toyota Rav4 to do that.

There was a time in-between him fixing up the laser that he took me for a lesson in my mother’s Holden Commodore, which for a 16 year old with not much driving experience was an army tank, big and powerful. I loved it. He gritted his teeth the entire time, I think it made him get the laser fixed quicker.

It was a fine day and we heated up to visit my grandfather at Kurri. A lot of the roads on the way the speed limit is 80/90, but I doubt I was going anywhere near that as it was one of my first times on the road. My dad would keep getting me to pull over to the side of the road so all the cars behind us could go past. I can remember on one of these pull out of the way stops, I was gliding to a nice smooth stop before a road marker and he was jumping up and down in his seat saying STOP! I was very cranky because I thought I did a beautiful smooth breaking job just like the paid driving instructor had been teaching me. I explained this to my father and his response was ‘’Break harder and faster when you’re in the car with me” The more I think about it, I think that was the only time he took me out in my mother’s car.

The difference between my mother and fathers teaching Technics where like night and day. My Dad would freak out and tell me to slow down and STOP!! and the radio was always off!! My Mum would sit in the passenger seat, relax and tune out to the music on the radio as I drove around collecting my minimum hours.

I would also like to point out I got my licence first go and scored 98% on my test, losing only two points for my reverse park (which is really amusing as I nearly always reverse into parking spots these days). So both my parents’ methods of teaching me to drive worked. The fella in the Rav4 paid off to, as neither of my parents had to try to teach me to park.

Life Lately

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I haven’t had time to post much lately, things have been rather hectic.

I’ve lost many hours and been through a great deal of stress trying to get everything organised for my son to start day care next week. So I’m already upset at the fact that I’m losing my baby boy to strangers, then I get dicked around by the government over child care rebates – NOT HAPPY JAN!!! Anyway I got it all sorted today finally, but DAMN why does everything have to be so hard!

I’m constantly on edge at the moment and it’s really starting to get on top of me – I NEED A BREAK – but as a mum I’ll never get one again. Just when I think I’m at my lowest point, in the darkest frame of mind I’ve ever been in, I get lower and it gets darker, I’m swinging like a god damn chimpanzee.

I did have a high light on Tuesday, it was my son’s first swimming lesson. I was really nervous, but Riley seemed to have a good time. He loves the water, he was one of the few babies who didn’t cry. When he was supposed to be floating on his back he kicked his legs and when he was supposed to be kicking he was just staring at the ceiling or watching the other babies – Yep that’s my boy easily distracted and doesn’t do what he’s told (sounds just like me all the way through school).

Tomorrow is February first so I’m going to get back on the band wagon with the 365 post challenge, I haven’t managed to do it for a few days now.

Also tomorrow I’ll be attending a day course on creative writing run by the Hunter Writers Centre. Really the last thing I feel like doing at the moment is going to a course in town, I’d rather stay in bed for a month straight in a dark quiet cave, but I know I’ll enjoy myself one I get there. I hope! I’m going to have to try a shut the real world out for the day.

Growing up too fast!!

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Tomorrow my little baby boy will be seven months old. Today he started to wear “Toddler” Nappies, yes my seven month old son is now wearing nappies for toddlers. Riley’s not a Fat baby if that’s what you’re thinking, No he’s just a big boy! Built like a rugby player, solid and strong. I’m rather upset about it, he’s growing too fast!!!! And also tomorrow I’ll be another year older! Yep I’d say I’m not going to have a good day tomorrow, but I’ll try to stay positive!

Train Trip

So on Friday Riley had his first Train ride and his first trip to Sydney. Everything went quite well and he was well behaved, be it quite noisy on the train trying to talk to everyone in his own way, but he seemed to enjoy himself. He was so tired from his Sydney adventure that he fell asleep on my lap while I was giving him his bottle, he hasn’t done that since he was about three months old. He was fast asleep in my arms, I managed to change his nappy and put him in his sleeping bag, then into his cot all without him waking up, yep he was exhausted, and it was wonderful.Sleeping Angel