A bit of an insight into fear of change and why it can be so hard to make positive changes

This started out as a basic update and ended up being a post where I ended up thinking about the ways self doubt and fear trap you and why it can be so hard to "just do it". 
You can totally see where the post takes a sharp turn away from a casual "hey check this out" to "omg here is my secret shame". I hope someone out there can relate and can find some comfort knowing that they're not alone <3

So today I actually invested in one of those "As seen on T.V!" things when I was at the supermarket. I got the Ninja Bullet Slim, one of those bullet-style blenders;

My little bullet blender

Of course I wanted the more powerful version, but alas it was just too expensive so I went with the smaller, cheaper version. But even though it wasn't the model I wanted when Sophia and I gave it a whirl tonight it really did blend up the fruit and veggies well, so I'm pretty happy with my purchase so far.

Now, I already have a great blender but it weighs a ton, it's freaking huge and it's a total PITA to assemble then disassemble to clean etc. so I rarely use it. Hell, I can't even keep it out on the bench top because it's just too big.
And you better believe that I am not dealing with all of that just to make one glass of veggie juice, you know? (yes, I can be pretty damn lazy)
Thankfully the size of this little blender is wonderful, I have it sitting right next to the toaster and it takes up less room than my teapot!
Plus it was super easy to use and clean, and for me half the battle is getting things started, so having it right there means I am much more likely to use it.

So now I've got my bag of baby spinach, lots of carrots and apples, frozen berries, some Jalna bush honey pot-set yoghurt and all that sort of good stuff and my aim is to have some sort of veggie &/or fruit drink daily.
I honestly think I will see some benefits if I do this for myself, at least I hope so.

Because the reality is that I don't do nice things for myself very often, at all.

But I'm starting to realise that it's not a necessarily a bad thing to be kind to myself, that I don't need to always tough it out and that doing something good for myself isn't being conceited or, IDK, being "up myself" or what have you.

I don't know if it's still used, but when I was a kid one of the cruelest accusations you could cop was being told that "you love yourself".
It was always said with such scorn and contempt, as if loving yourself was one of the worst things you could do. 
So I went out of my way to make sure no one ever thought I was guilty of ~loving myself~ especially as I was one of those kids. 
I had a funny accent, having lived in London and New York and had traveled extensively, which also meant changing schools a lot, so I really struggled to fit in and make friends. 

If I had had a good home life that instability would probably have had a lot less impact than it did, but unfortunately my mum and her partners/husbands failed to provide a safe, stable environment which could have served as a counter balance to the constant moving. As a result I was a deeply angry and insecure child who craved acceptance but lacked the social skills to make and maintain healthy friendships. 

Now, I didn't encounter the whole "ewww you love yourself" mindset until I returned to Australia when I was around 11 years old as it wasn't something American's seemed to be too concerned about (IME us Aussies have a hard time dealing with things like confidence and success, it tends to be viewed with a lot of suspicion).
But being that kid meant that I was keenly aware of any and all actions that could result in being ostracised even further, so I took it to heart that loving yourself was a sign of being conceited, arrogant and "up yourself". 
I couldn't risk that on top of already being labeled a teachers pet, because I loved to read and did well at school and honestly enjoyed the company of some of my teachers.

Unfortunately, if you take that whole "loving yourself is bad" idea in for too long and you don't have good people (like family) around you who love and support you and counter the negative self talk, that mindset can take root and flourish.
And let me tell you, unlearning that type of thinking is freaking hard. 

But I have to try to make some changes to the way I view myself and how I treat myself, because the reality is that I feel so  thoroughly awful about who I am that it has resulted in a lifetime of self sabotage and self loathing and I just can't live like this anymore.
I am just flat out tired of waking up every morning feeling this debilitating sense of disappointment, of feeling like I am simply killing time until I can go back to sleep, because dreaming is the best part of my day. 

That's no way to live. That's just existing and I know life can be so much more than that. 

I want to live my life with happy anticipation rather than unhappy resignation, but I don't even know how to feel any other way- trying to understand what it's like to live a joyful life is like a blind person trying to understand the concept of the colour red- it is utterly foreign.

And when you don't know any other way of being it is daunting making even the smallest of changes in the hopes of getting better, because what if I can't fix the way my mind works? As ridiculous as it may sound, allowing myself to feel hope or motivation comes with a biiiig side of self doubt and crippling fear. 

Having a mind that works like mine is tricky enough, but getting your hopes up with the aim of getting better only to find that you can't get better.. well, that is pretty fucking terrifying and makes the task of trying that much more daunting. There have been many times where I found myself not trying because the thought of failing on top of all the other stuff was simply too much... 
it's better not to hope at all than to give in to hope and have that hope dashed.



And that's where my little entry about my new blender took me, it was certainly a lot deeper than I was expecting or intending, but I've decided to publish this anyway because I know so many others out there live with anxiety and depression and fear of failure and I know it's comforting to me when I find something that makes me go "Yes! I totally understand where you're coming from!". 
Knowing there are others out there going through similar stuff can help me feel a little less alone, a little less of a utter failure. 
So maybe this entry can do the same for someone else, because feeling as if you're battling this all by yourself, feeling as if no one could possibly understand how debilitating all this can be, well, that's a pretty lonely place and I want you to know that you're not alone.
 
But seriously, who would have thought that buying a little bullet blender could be symbolic of so many deeply personal things...



Much love, as always,
Em xox

P.S. I have some exciting polishes arriving any day now, and I'm even going to try a water marble, so expect some bright fun swatches and nail art very soon :)

Today I want to show you Arcane Lacquer's oh-so-pretty "The Power, The Passion"

Hello to you all on this cold and dreary Saturday, I hope everyone is having a good weekend.
The house I'm renting is (unfortunately) currently on the market, which means my daughter, our youngest cat and I all have to nick off for 20 minutes every Saturday morning while they have an open for inspection. It is such a pain in the arse... I just want to spend a Saturday morning in my pj's, lounging around and being completely unproductive, so I really hope the house sells soon.

This Saturday in particular is a bit bleh as I'm starting to feel nervous about Monday's surgery. I'm getting my bag packed, running through my list of things to take and feeling like I'm forgetting something, like I always do. And just to add to the mood my skin has broken out, which is par for the course when I'm stressed.
Oh well, it''ll all be over by Monday evening, which will be a huge relief.

Anyway, in the meantime here's a mani I did yesterday featuring my other recent Arcane Lacquer purchase, "The Power, The Passion". I also used Nubar's "Star Sparkle" on my accent finger to add to the bling factor... and it really is blingy :D

"The Power, The Passion" is a dark, purple based glitter polish, not exactly what I'd call a jelly as it's not particularly viscous, but that's the best description I can think of. And in that base is a veritable smorgasbord of different coloured microglitter- from hot pink to green to holographic- all of it adding heaps of character to the polish and phenomenal levels of bling.

As with my other Arcane Lacquer's the formula is a delight to use, the dry time is minimal and I only needed two coats to achieve full coverage. Of course, being a glitter dense polish it dries slightly gritty, but one generous coat of Seche Vite was all it took to achieve a glassy smooth finish.

And will you look at that bling? So beautiful! The sun makes the colours jump out from that gorgeous, rich purple base. It's another "keep your eyes on the road" type polish that has me constantly distracted by the rainbow flashes as I'm driving.
I wonder if you can insure for nail polish induced accidents?

I don't know if I'll get around to doing another mani before I head off to hospital, especially as it all needs to come off for the operation, but if I do I'll try to take some nice pics before I go.

I must admit, the best part about all of this is that I'm coming home to a ridiculous amount of nail mail... I ordered far too much this week, but I justified it with the fact that I'm about to be operated on.
Plus, I'll use the polish as a recovery tool- happy minds/healthy bodies and all that.
So really, it was all for my health. Totally legitimate, right? See, I knew you'd understand. Those silly debt collectors, they just don't get it ;)

Arcane Lacquer is available through Etsy as well as through several overseas nail polish stockists- for a list of names just check the info page on Arcane's Etsy store.

If you happen to remember, please throw some good thoughts my way this Monday arvo when I go under the knife, and I'll see you all soon,
Em xox

Today's swatches Celestial Cosmetics "Birth of a Star" and an update on the law suit

Hello all.
Well, I haven't blogged for a few days and I actually feel guilty- I guess having a routine really is helpful in terms of giving me a sense of purpose while I wait for my next surgery.

Unfortunately I've had a bit of a rough time- my lawyers don't think I have a case against the hospital for screwing up my hip and left leg, and that's quite a blow, especially when you consider how much I have lost since 2012.
But, the laws regarding medical negligence were changed years ago when Jeff Kennett was in power and, as a result, it is extremely difficult to prove negligence now, so what can you do?
I'm not gonna lie, it's really devastating news, but I don't know what I can do about it, so I guess I'll just have to accept the loss of my business and the loss of my physical health and try to make the best of a truly shitty situation.

Anyway, that's enough whinging...onto the swatches;

As you can see, Birth of a Star is a gorgeous grey leaning purple. It has a faint holo effect under normal lighting, but under downlights and with the flash the holo rainbow shines through;

Shiny holo goodness

 This was a very easy polish to apply- fully opaque after two coats, no bald spots or dragging and the formula was a good consistency, neither too thick or thin.

To be honest I wasn't sure if I would like this colour- dusty purples tend to wash me out and make my skin tone look dead, but this is surprisingly flattering on my nails. I think part of that is because it's a darker colour and the grey aspect helps to counter the washed out issue.

Birth of a Star was a freebie to celebrate Celestial Cosmetics birthday, so I'm not sure if it's available to buy in their online store.
Regardless, if this is a fair representation of their holo polishes I would not hesitate to buy another, as this really is a lovely polish that seems to be free of the issues that can make holo polishes difficult to use- I even put a coat of Seche Vite over the polish and there's been no dulling of the holographic aspect (at least, as far as I can tell).

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

Achievements and setbacks

Well I have to say, I'm rather pleased with myself right now. I've been going to crossfit for just on 3 weeks and on Thursday I did this- twice;

Pictured; not me

I'm pretty happy with 2 full rope climbs, although I do wonder how much my years being a pole dancer helped ;)  It was intense and very tiring, especially in my forearms (they felt so pumped, so full) but I managed to touch the rafters on both attempts. Considering my upper body strength is shit and I'm scared of heights I reckon that was quite an achievement. I also scored some wicked bruises and a little bit of rope burn but it was so worth it.

So that was the good. Now the bad;
My surgeon is going away on sabbatical for 6 bloody months in the 2nd week of June and he might not get to me in time. That means my surgery that was supposed to be done by June might not happen until freaking January ;_; And because of the progressive nature of OA (osteoarthritis) there's a good chance that my hip may no longer be healthy enough to be saved by a PAO (periacetabular osteotomy), which is news I'm really struggling to deal with.
There's a lot of reasons I don't want this surgery done in January of next year- it's the height of summer, it's tourist season, it's 9 fucking months away and puts off my recovery until the middle of next winter, when I'm turning 42. I don't want to wait another year and a half to start my life again, I want to do this now so I can get on with getting well. And the idea that I might ruin my hip in the meantime scares the living crap out of me... I am so scared that they'll open me up next year only to find that my hip is beyond saving and that I will have to get a THR (total hip replacement) instead. So yeah, this is bad news. It also means I might have to shelve training too, as deadlifts, squats, olly lifts and so on all put incredible stress on the hip and it could hasten the OA. On the other hand training helps me to manage my depression, so I'm really caught between a rock and a hard place right now.
I've also had to back off the paleo eating as it's just too expensive for me to maintain. I know people go on about how much they save by not eating out but I never do that anyway as I can't afford it (and I have no social life). People also say stuff like "but think how much you'll save in the long run with your health!" umm, dude, I can't put petrol in my car to get my kid to school if I eat like this. In other words, I don't think these people actually understand what it's like to live on the poverty line.
I am, however, very interested in the I.F (intermittant fasting) approach to getting lean as it sounds similar to the way I like to eat- I was told for so many years that I needed to eat breakfast or I'd ruin my metabolism so I forced myself to eat, even though I really struggled with it, and here's a method that advocates doing what I did instinctively. It also allows grains and so on which would also suit my financial situation better than paleo too. So we shall see...
And just to prove that age is no reason to quit, here's a lady who is still a bad ass, blue rinse and all;

 awesomesauce

Paleo, eating disorders and raising healthy kids

I haven't blogged for a few days as I've been flat out working, training, looking after Sophia and generally trying to fit 24 hours worth of activity into 12. But I really feel a need to put this out there as I'm feeling a bit conflicted at the moment.
To be honest I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole paleo trip; I feel like I've never cooked so much or thought about food so much in my life. The last time I was this focused on my eating habits I was in the midst of an eating disorder and I do worry that this is veering rather close to the obsessive attitudes I had back then.
I am also struggling with the idea of raising my daughter in this lifestyle for a number of reasons, some of which I've outlined below;
First off, we never drink soft drinks (soda) and we don't go heavy on highly processed foods, we're not big on lots of dairy and try to eat a healthy, well rounded diet (by Western standards). So it's not like we are coming from a place of take away food and cola.
On the other hand we both enjoy the odd chocolate biscuit or lollipop, my daughter has the odd drink of juice (too sweet for me) and sometimes we eat some chips or popcorn, but it's far from being the bulk of our food intake and we're just as likely to have watermelon or greek yogurt with raw honey and nuts for a treat or snack.
My daughter gets multigrain or wholemeal sandwiches for lunch and toast for brekkie, she enjoys my pasta dishes (and no wonder- I'm a good cook) and she loves rice. I have recently cut out grains in my diet but it's so expensive eating high protein that I don't know how long I can afford to maintain it. The reality is that pasta or rice can stretch 1 chicken fillet into 3 or 4 meals and that's kinda important when you live on 22k a year (and rent alone is around 12k).

Another thing to remember is that my daughter was a severe IUGR baby, weighing in at less than 1400 grams at 36 weeks-  she was actually the size of a 29 week gestation baby when she was born.  So, physically speaking, she has always been on the small side.

Hell, she wasn't even on the growth chart for the first year of life and remains a very slender girl at 8 years of age. I mean, she's not scrawny at all, she has good muscle mass, but she's pretty lean and always has been.


In other words neither of us are obese or anywhere near it and my daughter's IUGR means that she is unlikely to ever be so. So is it fair of me to restrict her dietary intake of things like brown rice, legumes, pasta and bread because I want to drop body fat?

And speaking of body fat levels, do I want to risk going back to this? because the physical ideal I am striving for may have more muscle, but she's still lean as fuck.
Is it even possible to reach these goals without engaging in disordered behaviour?

So I feel very torn at the moment;
Do I want my daughter to fear sugar? Do I want her to see food as "good" or "bad"? Because that's how I saw food when I was starving myself and that's one legacy I don't want to pass on- I don't really know how to overhaul our eating habits without demonising certain foods, and that worries me.

I guess what I am trying to figure out is where do I draw the line? At what point do my personal choices regarding diet impact on my daughter's right to enjoy a "normal" childhood?