In which I moan about my idyllic life and break a toe

I am feeling deeply uninspired. I have life envy. I'm only half serious but I do feel as if I'm missing something important. Oh I have my moments but there is this heavy, useless feeling that sits in my ever more resplendent tummy and makes me feel tired and frustrated at the same time. Have you ever tried being enervated and tired at the same time? It's irritating. And tiring.

Sigh.

Anyway, I have just been feeling a bit flat, as happens to most of us from time to time. The weight of mothering has been a bit heavy since I returned refreshed from our holiday in the (nearly) sunshine and I had a truly spectacularly awful meltdown at Beanie on Tuesday. I phoned the hubble in tears and tried to convince him that he should have me quietly taken away. Better that than add any more scars to our beautiful daughter's soul courtesy of her crazy fekkin mamma. Beanie and I went to bad not long afterwards and slept for two and a half hours. I felt better afterwards. Sleep has always been the great escape from my uncomfortable emotions though I'm not entirely sure if that's a good thing or a very strong case of avoidance. Ah well.

I should just stop comparing myself to other people. I know I should. It's just that they seem to be so living so much more passionately than I am. And they sure as hell create so much more effortlessly than I can. People seem to find hours in the day to do all sorts of incredible stuff. BlueBirdBaby finds time to work, furnish a new house, spend lots of quality time with her adorable little girl, sew, play piano, learn guitar, cook AND take lots of amazing photographs. HOW? I think I'm just lazy. I have lots of things I'd like to do but I get distracted easily. Ooh, something shiny...vroom..gone.

I am living in my very own hoosie finally and it's wonderful. Yet, I haven't had that excited, champagne opening, celebratory "whoopee" feeling at all. Obviously, it was a teensy bit influenced by the 'hood' up the hill but not all of it comes from that. Has anyone else experienced this? You want something, you work at it, you wait and then suddenly you have it and.... nothing. Not a single shiny spark of excitement can be coaxed. I think my happiness button is broken along with my toe. (Swooped foot forward to be enveloped in lovely Ugg boot, missed slipper and slammed my 'ring' toe on my right foot into the skirting board with a very 'crack!' Now I have 'The Black Toe'). Anyway, to get back to my moan. So, here I am, surrounded by trees, trees and more trees and believe it or not despite the odd breaking of the sound barrier coming from elsewhere, there is a lot of peace to be had and yet I'm still feeling unsettled. It's like I haven't dropped into place yet. I am very concerned that I am simply one of those people who is NEVER satisfied with life no matter what happens. I mean, get a grip already. God, I'd so hate for that to be true of me. I have many faults but I don't want to own that one. No sirree.

I think its really just the accumulation of a lot of things happening all at once. Moving house, Beanie getting more and more demanding and, well, a bit naughty to be honest, (planning the next small fry whilst the current small fry is being exasperating is a little scary thank you very much), realising how much renovation our house requires to make it truly our own, the business closing in Brisbane and my unsurety that I actually want to continue it at all...yadda yadda yadda. It's all a bit much and I know I need to take it all one little chunk at a time but it's easier said than done. Especially for a horribly driven (lazy) perfectionist like me. So here I am - marvelling at all the accomplishments of others whilst feeling like a great fat prize Turkey on Thanksgiving.

Oh shut up, you're being overly dramatic. Again.

I went for a reading to Oracle, this charming little witchy-poo shop in Sassafrass yesterday. Just sort of blustered in and decided on it in the space of a heartbeat. It was interesting. The lovely french proprietoress did rather ram the point home once she had found it (which took a while) and I did get rather itchy feet and want to go home near the end, but then something extraordinary happened. She came out after our reading had finished and handed me a beautiful quartz crystal sphere (about the size of a small orange) and said that she wanted me to have it. She had never in her life done anything like that before but she said that she wanted to loan it to me (even if I needed it for 20 years!)to remind me of what the reading said. I was rather gobsmacked to say the least. So now i have this dazzling crystal sitting on my bureau upstairs in my boudoir and I'm still slightly bemused about everything. I did level the playing field slightly by spending over $100 in their shop not long afterwards. Oh, who am I kidding. I'd have spent that ball or not bloody ball. I just cannot resist that store. After my reading and whilst still 'embracing' the whole message of the thing, I did say out loud (but not in a 'mad woman talking to herself! Quick Martha, grab the children and RUN!' type of way), 'OK precious boy, come to me. I'm ready if you are,' or words to that effect. And I felt that familiar shiver come over me that tends to portend something life changing. Like already being up the duff or something. I had it the day I met the hubble. Oh. Shit.

On another note entirely - I pulled out all the cauli's and a whole heap of other unidentified plants from the garden yesterday. Now there are two quite bare looking terraces that need turning over and fertilising. Then I come to the heady part of choosing and planting our new crop. The gluttonous part of me is practically giddy about the idea of it but the reality of it will be far less mesmerising I'm guessing. All dirt, weeding and trying not to overwater it or whatever. I guess there's no way to go but up when you are starting at the very bottom and are as complete a novice as I am about gardening. I think I'll look into planting by moon also as it seems to have such interesting results for other gardeners. Plus, anything by moon is so delicious.

So yes. I've had a little ramble. I've had a little moan and I know I should just pull my socks up and get ON with it but I am so reluctant, so resistant at the moment. Ah well, the winds of change will come whether I am ready or not. The rather jaunty hat on the sun of the horizon is that we did a meet and greet of most of the neighbours on Saturday. I baked up a load of choccie cookies and we did the rounds. the people over at the 'hood' were out (or hiding their meth lab/dope plants and therefore to busy to come to the door), we met two terribly uninspiring neighbours either side of them and then shambled down the road to the next lot feeling disappointed and rather shit about it all. The next two houses we knocked at were out. Getting better and better. THEN we discover Tim - the lovely greek gardener/amazing painter/ex-primary school teacher - who invited us in for a cuppa, showed us all his paintings (he's exhibited in Rome and Paris and London) and called the Kookaburra's ('ella ella' it means 'come' in Greek) and got them to feed from his hands. I'm not even a little bit kidding. Beanie was in raptures. His garden was like something from an English stately home with statues of Pan and little altars to the Goddess - it was what heaven looks like I'm sure. He then decided to take us over to meet his best friends, Paul and Gail. We pootled through their garden, had a glass of Pinot and chatted like we'd known each other for years. Paul is an ex soapie-actor, plays concert level piano and, of course, paints and gardens like Tim. His wife is an ex-teacher and also gardens and does assorted artsy stuff. They were so laid back that they didn't even mind when Beanie opened a packet of coriander seeds (home harvested) all over their lovely leather sofa's. I cannot tell you what a breath of fresh air those people have been to me and to the Hubble. Paul and Gail have been here for over 30 years and are probably only now nearing their 60's. They look so damn vital it's hard to tell! Tim has the most amazingly youthful eyes I've ever seen. He looks so mischevious and his wife is adorable too. So we floated home on a warm Pinot cloud, hugging these new 'families' to ourselves like a warm fluffy blanket and I felt, for the first time, that maybe we hadn't made a mistake in buying here. That was a precious gift let me tell you when we can't get broadband, have terrible mobile reception, can't get papers (or parcels) delivered and have to drag our bins uphill for about 15 minutes to put them out for the trucks! I am also intensely grateful that our next door neighbour is no longer seeing the 'very bad man' that sold drugs and caused 'domestics' loud enough to be heard by Paul and Gail who are quite a way away from our house. Apparently there was even a shot fired at some point. So let me say a profound 'THANK YOU' to the Gods that sorted that one out before we arrived.

Warning: Randomness alert.
Love this.

So - I'll hopalong to bed now. Calm my fractious child and try and find some secret space in my head that can draw me down into rest. For I have much to do and far to travel before my journey is done.