So, a bit of a new direction... but first some stuff about mental illness, life, bad decisions and nail polish

This turned out to be really long and a bit confessional in nature, so you have been warned;

Now, anyone who knows me will agree that I'm very much a "phase" person.
I go through times where I will only eat Trident chicken soup, with dumplings and baby peas... for months (this is my current dinner "thing").

Or I will eat Cadbury Crunchie bars, but only the mini ones, in huge quantities for a week or so, then lose all interest.

I also live with mental health issues that definitely play a part in these phases- when I am feeling good I will be training at the gym 6 days a week and will be determined to enter a powerlifting comp or somesuch (I have competed once, in my 20's and I do love training).

When I'm feeling up I will want to volunteer with the local CFA or SES and go back to uni. I'll start writing again... you get the picture.

Pictured; NOT ME doing cool emergency stuff with the SES

Not me again being part of the SES

 Aaaand NOT ME absailing down a cliff to rescue someone with the SES

I don't experience mania per se, it's more like what I assume motivated people feel, but with less direction and, unfortunately, a time limit. If I were that "up" all the time I suspect I would be a very driven, successful person.

OK, maybe not that successful... also, unlimited power in my hands would be a dreadful thing

But as I said, there's a time limit and when I'm down I'm really down.
It's an achievement just getting my kid to school on time, and I'll often go back and sleep until it's time to pick her up. I will be so exhausted that I feel as if I am trying to move through some thick, viscous liquid that weighs my limbs down and clouds my mind.

The down phases don't have anything to do with external factors- I can be exercising 6 days a week, eating well, getting stuff done and then I'm suddenly sinking down into this awful, murky place where even simple movement feels like a monstrous task.

It's exhausting and excruciating to live like that- this cycle of being really together and motivated coupled with periods of depression so deep and so dark that I have gone to places where suicide is the sanest of my considerations.

It also makes it really freaking difficult to do things like hold down a job, or be an active member of the school council, or be part of a mothers group or god knows what other things people go to where they bond and make friends.

Lets be honest, it's hard to make friends when you veer between these states

over and over again

It doesn't help that I feel as if I don't fit in, because of the way I am.

And as a result of that feeling of disconnection and alienation, as well as trying to manage my mood swings, I spent most of my life self medicating- I was an addict for 20+ years... I started drinking and smoking pot when I was only 13 years old.

Luckily I was always good at school (except for maths- I am pretty sure I have some sort of dyscalculia, the maths version of dyslexia). I got in to a good university, but entered rehab for my drinking in my first year and developed a speed habit by my second year and then I simply dropped out.

I tried many ways to self destruct, and I wasted so many opportunities that could have given me a life that is far different from the one I now lead.

I even went to prison in my late 20's for 12 months. That was an interesting time, no doubt about that.

I also loved a very damaged, but good hearted man for almost 8 years and he is the father of my precious daughter.

Unfortunately he took his own life when I was almost 4 months pregnant. I found him, and even 10 years on I shy away from remembering that day. That loss definitely changed who I am and definitely damaged my ability to love anyone else (at least, at this point).

Needless to say, my pregnancy was a very stressful, unhappy time and my daughter was born a severe IUGR baby (although you would never know it now).

My lovely, gentle step brother, Jason, was also murdered by his wife and his "best friend" shortly after my daughter's birth, my baby was extremely difficult and didn't sleep through for over 2 years, I was living in emergency housing next door to loud, violent alcoholics... life was pretty difficult but I managed it, and I actually managed it well.

 

Yeah, my kid is pretty freaking cute

I love this pic so much <3

Fast forward through a failed attempt at a "grown up" relationship with a man who ended up mistreating me and my child, several relapses, a bout of anorexia and that damn cycle of ups and downs and this is where I am now.

I love my girl- to the moon and back

I actually had managed to get my life pretty much together until 2012, when I had a pelvic osteotomy to treat my hip dysplasia. Unfortunately the surgery was a disaster and my burgeoning house painting business was an early casualty.

I also lost my mother 11 months ago to cervical cancer, and it was a terrible experience. She could have survived it, but she chose to pursue "alternative" cancer treatments instead of having the chemo and she was dead within 18 months of the first diagnosis (it's actually the first year anniversary on the 29th of this month- I can't believe time has gone by so quickly).

I miss you mum

And during all of that I had to have a second major surgery which also didn't really work out too well.

That's a LOT of plating :\

I am due to have a third surgery in a couple of weeks (hopefully that will be the end of that saga).

Thankfully, after a lifetime of pretty debilitating ups and downs I eventually found a medication that actually works (!!!) and I am managing to get through these last couple of years, and all the terrible losses I've suffered during this time, without hitting a significant low period. And that's pretty bloody amazing, all things considered.

That's right little pill, fix that brain!

Yup, hurry up and get working, off you go

So, this blog was initially about tracking my crossfit journey (a scene that was just perfect for someone like me who needs to have some sort of identity to which I can attach myself) but, with my current disability, it's been on hiatus for many, many months.

This was me pre 2nd surgery

I can't train, and I'm bored, so what's to write about?
But! and this is the cool thing about life, I have found a bit of an outlet to help give me some much needed fun and distraction from being poor and stuck at home waiting for various surgeries. And that outlet is nail polish (and to a lesser extent, corsets and tight-lacing).

Me in my Mystic City corset

So, I think I will blog a fair bit about polish- it's fun, it's pretty, it makes me feel good and I can have fun with it while recovering enough to start training again (although I doubt I will ever be able to do crossfit or lift as heavy as I used to ;_; )

I follow some AMAZING polish bloggers, some of whom are also Australian, which is very cool.

I've also stumbled onto the whole "indie nail polish" scene and I loooove it!!! The creativity on display is awesome.

Arcane Lacquer "Festive Embrace'

TBQH I am even considering making some polishes of my own (of course I am, haha), going from being a self employed house painter to a self employed nail polish maker :)
The good thing about working for one's self is that if I have a low patch I can simply go on hiatus for a while until I am well enough to get back into things, whereas a straight job simply doesn't allow for people like me.

I doubt that I will end up making my own polish, simply because of the start up costs, BUT I am going to look into that and some other job ideas...

Rent's gotta get paid

I'm definitely scared right now- I'm 42 and I've just lost my first business, one that I really think I could have succeeded with. And now I have to start all over again. I don't even know where to begin, but I will keep trying. I have to, if not for me then for my daughter (and our two cats).

I shall prevail!

So, the blog is going to be changing direction, possibly just for a while, possibly for ages, or possibly I'll forget to update this and it will join the ranks of deserted blogs littering the interwebs.
Wooh! Uncertainty about a blog no one reads! Here's a picture for those of you who made it all the way to the end;

May Bowie bless and protect you from overly long blog entries...

And it just keeps going... WTF universe?!

Soooo, the surgery I was supposed to have had to promote my fractured pelvis to heal has been cancelled. The good news is there's been some bone growth, so the need fr a new bone graft with an internal electrical stimulator is no longer necessary.

However, my left leg still doesn't work properly and I am not scheduled for any further orthopedic surgery at all.

I am, however, still scheduled to have the herniated bladder fixed- an issue that is a direct result of my last surgery (the internal stitches gave way, so my bladder pushed out below the pubic mound... lovely, right?). As for when I'm having that surgery, well, only the god-like waiting list nurses know that one and I am currently completely in the dark.

Needless to say, I am preeeety pissed off right now. I feel as though I have been shoved into the "too hard" basket and have been left to simply struggle on with a dodgy hip indefinitely. Thanks a lot St Vincent's, you really fucked me over on this one... they really need to work on their public relations, because the way they operate (no pun intended) currently is fucking terrible.

In the meantime I'm keeping myself busy buying bottles of nail polish and expanding my etsy wishlist daily haha

I am getting better with my manicures and am starting to play around with using tape etc to create interesting designs, though I'm steady enough to draw the smile lines on my french manicures free-hand. I still love glitter the best though.

Ahhh glitter... I love glitter. Except for how bloody difficult it is to remove. I use the ol' aluminium and cotton balls soaked in acetone, but it's still a pain in the bum. So I've ordered some "peel off" undercoat that is supposed to work brilliantly with glitter polishes- I've ordered Innisfree, a Korean brand, as it was cheaper that the OPI version but should work just as well.

Also, did you know acetone eats through plastic? I didn't. Until I accidentally spilt nail glue all over my dining table (a beautiful antique table that needs to be re-sanded urgently lol). The glue also got on the bottom of my shiny Apple track pad and when I used acetone to try and remove it I ended up removing some of the track pad instead. Thankfully it's only cosmetic damage, and very minor at that (it's not noticeable unless you're looking at the underside of the track pad, and why would you do that?). So that was a bit of a nightmare to deal with- I swore pretty damn loud and long, that's for sure.

Speaking of polish, here's Nubar Star Sparkle and Violet Sparkle

And here's Emily De Molly's "Fashion Victim" with Nubar Star Sparkle on the accent nail;

And finally, Color Club's "Holiday Splendor" which, like the polishes above, is impossible to photograph properly because of my crappy camera phone's inability to capture the glittery goodness...

Nail Art and Other Coping Mechanisms

So, I've been spending a lot of time reading nail polish blogs and playing around with my nails because wtf else am I gonna do?

Here's some pics of the gorgeous nail polishes I have collected, and some that I want oh so bad (Australian Indie polishes are amazing btw);

This is Arcane Lacquer's "Festive Embrace", a gorgeous red jelly packed with gold, red and holo glitter. My pics do not do it justice.

Arcane Lacquer's "Little Quibble"
Such a pretty green (I have a thing for purple and green polishes- I think I only own 1 blue... IDK why greens make me so happy)

This is Emily De Molly's amazing "Cosmic Forces", one of the most amazing polishes I have ever seen. It's like looking through the Hubble Telescope... stunning.

Another Emily De Molly "Fashion Victim" (swatch is from her web site) This is much, much more intense and sparkly in real life, it's gorgeous.

Emily De Molly "Serenity" (swatch from her site). A very pretty turquoise colour with copper, lavender and blue glitter

Emily De Molly's "Oceanic Forces", another amazing jelly polish with fabulous depth and holo glitter (swatch from her site). Love it.

And finally Emily De Molly's "Absent Minded". TBH this is the only polish I've bought from her that didn't floor me, but it is still very pretty. It might just be that I have too many similar coloured purples as it is, so it needs to be pretty amazing to impress me(swatch from her site)

Speaking of AMAZING purple polishes, meet Arcane Lacquer's "The Power and the Passion"
This is on my "must have" list bc omg sparkles! Green and purple! Shiney!
(swatch from Harlow & Co)

I've also recently bought an LED light and Gelish soak off base and topcoat so I can start to do some gel manis from home. I might do the odd one for friends, but it's mainly another way to fill in time as I wait and recover from various surgeries.

I did do the cutest nail stamping mani the other day, which ended up looking like a tiger. So much fun and a really cheery mani too- cute hey?

Anyway, that's what I've been doing recently to keep myself occupied while sitting on my disabled arse all day.

My car's alternator repairs have cost $760, of which I have paid $400 and I am hurting very badly financially speaking.

My surgery has been pushed back a week to the 7th of April and I have to pay $1195 in rent on the 5th and then pay $265 car rego on the 10th, plus I still owe $90 to the vets for my cat's $1800 surgery... this is all going on while living on around $20,000 a year on a disability pension with an additional parenting payment.

And my rent alone is over 50% of my income, let alone utilities, food, petrol, medication, school fees, school uniforms, clothes for my kid, vet care for my cats... you get the picture

This is Smudge, our baby cat who fell asleep with his leg over his head because he's a silly billy. I got him a couple of months after our precious Big Cat died as I felt that Peanut was lonely. Smudge adores Peanut, it's too cute.

And this is poor old Peanut after his major surgery- a double femoral osteotomy after he broke both back legs along the growth plate where the thigh bone meets the hip socket. He's much slower since the surgery and certainly can't jump fences anymore. He's had a rough trot- he's been hit by a car, had a bad reaction to the anesthetic when he was spayed and then he broke both back legs... but he's a sweetheart of a cat and we love him lots.

And my daughter, who just turned 10, is growing up so fast! And gee, she's going to be a very lovely woman :)

Anyway, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, and I thank god for the pension as it allows me to survive. BUT, I live on the poverty line, raising my daughter and 2 cats (plus a psychotic bunny rabbit). So emergencies like a vet bill or car repairs totally decimate my bank account.

Seriously, when you live on the dole there is no such thing as a financial safety net, there is no extra couple of hundred set aside for emergencies... it's always all spent because there is so little.
My daughter has school photos next week and I don't know how I'm going to pay for it...

Shame I decided to spend money on polish literally a couple of weeks before my car died. Like, my timing is so shitty.

I had thought I could maybe make a bit of $$$ here and there doing the odd manicure, so it seemed like a good investment at the time and I do have people interested.

And it's viable too as I can do nails while seated, so unlike house painting my disability doesn't affect my ability to do this, and I can work around my depression and so on by simply not doing anything when my mind isn't working right.

I had even thought I could eventually start making my own line of polish as I have some fantastic ideas, and it's something I think I could be really good at, however it takes a fair bit in terms of start up costs. But it was a goal to work towards at least.

Honestly, it really did seem like a good idea at the time, until I got hit by this financial avalanche of disaster, which has screwed me so totally I don't even know when I'll have a spare $20, let alone hundreds.

 At least my surgery is now taking place on the 7th of April, which is the 1st day of the school holidays, so I don't need to worry about having someone getting Sophia to and from school while I'm in Melbourne, getting cut open yet again.

Fingers crossed they get it right this time around- 3rd time lucky, right?

Regardless, I'm still attempting fantastic, I've just had a couple of major obstacles to overcome in the meantime ;)

So many things have gone wrong, you wouldn't believe it...

Hmm, so I haven't blogged since 2012.
What to say? Since July 2012 the following has happened;

My mum died of cancer because she didn't have the chemo because she was a New Age devotee and believed Vit C and reiki would work just as well. I held her hand as she died- only 62 years old and she dies of preventable, treatable cervical cancer. She died 2 weeks to the day before my 2nd surgery.

The doctors fucked up my 1st surgery and I am about to have my 3rd operation in 3 weeks. Oh, and they also fucked up my 2nd surgery a bit too. yay.

I've lost my house painting business, my beautiful Big Cat go hit by a car and died and my other cat Peanut broke both his back legs and required a double femoral osteotomy which cost over $1800 which I still owe $90 on.

And 2 weeks ago my car's alternator died and it's gonna cost over $700 to fix- money I simply don't have- so I'm not sure what the hell I'm going to do about that. It's at the mechanics and I'm hoping to raise a couple of hundred dollars towards the bill so I can pay say $400, pick up my car and then pay the rest off at $100 a week.

As a result of losing partial use of my left leg, and thus my just-registered house painting business, I am now living on a disability pension, all whilst raising my daughter, a rabbit and 2 cats, so I'm constantly broke.

How's that for an update?

My pelvis is plated like woah;
 

Because when they did the LPAO they accidentally broke my ischium and I had non union too, so the ischial tuberosity was unattached to the rest of my pelvis and moved- you can see how much it moved in only 2 months in this x-ray;

The red arrow is the ischial fracture and the blue arrow is the non union


Oh, and they also herniated my bladder when they plated my pelvis, so it pops out like this;

 

My surgery on the 31st of this month will be a bone graft with the insertion of an internal electrical stimulator, plus surgery to fix the herniated bladder.

So obviously I can't train at all and I feel like my life has been totally derailed. I don't know what I'm going to do after these medical procedures are finally at an end- I'm 42 and thought I had found a job that I could do, something that I really enjoyed and that paid well too. And now I'm disabled and on a goddamn pension.

No doubt, this has been one of the roughest 2 years of my life. The only time in my life that was as bad as this was when my partner of 7 1/2 years committed suicide when I was 4 months pregnant, with me finding his body and having to deal with all of that. 

Then my daughter was born weighing 1400gm at 36 weeks and was in NICU for 2 months and my step brother was murdered just after she was born. And during all of this I was also living in emergency housing with terribly violent alcoholics living next door who would wake up my baby and scare me... no doubt that that was one hell of a rough time, probably the roughest, but this current situation is certainly a close second.

NEGL, I kinda wonder what I've done to warrant such consistent ill fortune.

I have a donation button up on my tumblr (skramamme) and some people have been kind enough to donate because I need my car- I can't walk long distances any more and my daughter needs to get to and from school, plus I need it to do the food shopping etc. Being disabled with no car in an area with virtually no public transport is very difficult.

I am so grateful to those who have donated, but I am nowhere near the money I need.

I doubt anyone will even read this, but if you do and want to head over here and either signal boost or throw $5.00 my way I'd be super grateful;

Here's the link to my tumblr page- the donate button is on the far left

Anyway, I will keep this updated as to how I go with the next surgery and so on. Wish me luck <3