For those that have been missing my updates here, feel free to come over and say hello, add your comments and have a look over the new place. I’ve more or less settled in there, having finalised the design and how the place works. I know most of you guys are gaming followers, but you are most welcome to pop over there and say hi.
A snapshot of my Kiwi Mum site
Glimpse of Development for a Blog and Gallery Design
Currently working on a number of ‘real world’ projects at the moment. One of which, is a website that I’ll give you a little glimpse of here to the right.
The other thing I have been working on is splitting my blog into two sections, one (this one) for the mudding type stuff, and the other for the real world mummy type stuff. I figure some of you just probably aren’t that interested in that. And I admit there is often a lot of stuff I want to write about in my blog that doesn’t quite fit this place. So, I’ve mostly set up the domain, theme, etc for that up… The motivation partially behind it was to familiarise myself with WordPress themeing too before my next job… but yeah, those of you who want to read about that kind of thing, and I warn you, that’ll be where the rants, and cute kid-pictures reside… email me and let me know and I’ll send you the link.
It is a big scary word for me. Been there, done that and came out the other end alive and kicking. However, it doesn’t seem right that the man that ultimately saved my life from cancer is going to soon be dying from it.
About a decade ago I was blacking out regularly. I was stick thin weighing in at about 50kilos and given that I’m not exactly short, that, for me, was a good 10 – 15 kilos lighter than I normally am. I was barely eating and going out every other night clubbing. I thought the blacking out and feeling crap was just a side effect of my life style, and I couldn’t see why my family were making such a fuss. In the end I caved in, registered at a doctor (I’m not big on GP’s) and got a blood test.
A day later I had a phone call from my GP, who was lovely, telling me that my white blood cells are low. Really low and asking me how I was. She wanted me to get retested in a couple of days. I did. And I got another call. This time, it was the surgery saying I needed to come in urgently. Right away. I did, and they said I had to go into hospital right away.. so a couple of hours later I was being admitted into hospital for testing. I was there for a couple of weeks. And it was a bit of a nightmare. Horrid tests and procedures.. nothing showed anything significant. Just that my white blood cells were really, really dangerously low. They were about to do a chest x-ray, and then they found out I had something called Ectodermal Dyslasia. And even though they had no idea what it was, they decided to just put it down to that and sent me home. If they had of done that chest x-ray.. they’d of discovered I had cancer. They didn’t.
My family, frustrated with the result and with all of us knowing that something else was going on, took me to my old childhood GP in Ngaruawahia. He pulled strings and managed to get me an appointment with the right people. They did the chest xray and I was diagnosed with Hodgkins.
If he hadn’t of done that, then the cancer would of progressed much further and I might not be alive today. Today I found out, that this same family GP, who is still quite young, has been diagnosed with cancer. Cancers plural. Liver, lungs, pancreas, bowel, everywhere. And he likely doesn’t have long. There were no symptoms, no clues. It just happened. And fast. Very aggressive.
I quickly got the family together tonight and organised a big bunch of roses because I know he loves them from all of us.
It doesn’t seem right. I really am not a fan of death.
Strawpeople, Taller than God. This is what I was listening to back when I was diagnosed.
Firstly, in contrast to the title, I want to say a thank you to everyone who have submitted ideas for the Evocation spells. I hope to put them in over the next couple of days and will let you know how that goes and reward.
Next bit. I can’t sleep. I should be able to. I’m tired, but it’s another one of those nights when things just keep running through my brain.
For a song that is 13th on the APRA Top 100 New Zealand songs of all time.. it was very hard to find on YouTube… the best I could find wasn’t good enough so my search continued elsewhere and I came up with this. Another oldie with lots of memories. Silly memories when I was in love with my best friend who frequently shared my bed in a very platonic way and somewhat agonising way (for me), which gives the starting lyrics all the more meaning,
“Hello my friend, it’s morning time to wake now.
Your body and mine, entwined we’ll have to break now.
I want your flesh, your warmth to stay beside me…”
I also remember singing this song with another good friend in front of a too-large audience at my University Hostel. Needless to say, I got rather drunk to give myself the courage for the performance. So here it is: Not Given Lightly, by Chris Knox.
Wow. I’m good at procrastinating. I’m completely avoiding the topic. And now… 2am. So yeah. Question for those out there that are paired, or not and once were. Birthdays, valentines, graduations, anniversaries, mothers days, and other such special occasions? Do you do anything for them in respect of your better half? Ignore them? How would you feel if they ignored them? Or is it not such a big deal? And when I mean ‘do anything’ I don’t necessarily mean going out and spending a lot of money. Whether it be a simple ‘Happy Birthday’ spoken, or a home made card, breakfast in bed, or yummy home cooked meal. Or a dozen roses and a meal out in restaurant. What sort of things do you like to do for the person you love?
I think, growing up I didn’t exactly have boyfriends. My teenage life was weird to say the least. Far from normal (but that is a long story and short of staying up to 5am, I’m not getting into that here). But I saw a number of my friends acquaintances at school with boyfriends. And I admit to always being jealous, and imagined that one day, that would be me. I’d have some great guy who cared about me, and made me feel special on those special days too. My ex- did the exact opposite and took particular care to make sure my birthdays were pretty horrid. So coming out on the other side of that it is all the more important to me. But given my past experience, my expectations as to what is special isn’t that high. And I can’t seem to get past the fact that my current bf couldn’t think of a single thing to say or do for me, for these occasions. My birthday went by without a happy birthday. No email in my inbox. No postcard with a scribbled poem. Nothing.
Or maybe I’m making too big a deal out of this.
Just finished watching Samurai 7 and really enjoyed it. Loved the series and the epic and yet tragic feel to it, despite the happy ending. Looking for another to watch and keep me awake till the early morn’.
Deviant Kambei Fanart
Deviant Kambei Fanart
Okay. A post on something meaningful. Something that is not another mother-rant. A post that is not a code update. And is not a cute-Ewan-photos-post.
For those that are new to my blog and my life, it has been a bit of a roller coaster. There’s always been a lot of shit going on. And to catch those who haven’t been around, up on things it went kind of like this:
University in Auckland for 3 years -> Cancer for 1 year -> Ran away to Australia for 9 months -> Ran away to UK -> Emotionally and physically abusive husband for 6 years -> Returned to NZ, enrolled in Uni found out I was pregnant -> Studied and had a beautiful boy -> Invited my Mum to move in with me for a year -> 2 years later she’s still there, driving me insane.
My husband, I’m separated from and have been since I returned to New Zealand. Marrying him wasn’t one of my best decisions. But there was a lot of pressure on me. It was last minute. There was no wedding. No wedding dress. Not a single member of my family there. And at the time, it was billed to me as just a piece of paper, not a real wedding. Just to allow us to continue to date and see each other. And yet, the moment the piece of paper was signed at the registry, things changed. I won’t get into that too much here, yet. But it was mostly bad, but had enough good in it to at first, make me want to keep trying. I believed the promises. Eventually I didn’t, but by that time, getting out of it was too hard and took a long time to organise.
But eventually I did it, with the help and support of a good friend. I still don’t feel like I’m married or have been. We never lived a real married life, if there ever was such a thing. I was not a girl who dreamed of a perfect wedding, or play-acted it as kids. Maybe that was because we travelled too much growing up so I never had friends long enough to do that sort of thing with. It’s nothing I’ve ever really thought too much… at least, until recently when I started following a style blog, on which they posted daily these amazing wedding photographs and designs. And it made me want to have that. I still want it, that person that is perfect for me. That knows me so well. Who can cheer me up and make me feel amazing, who supports me and likes me and wants to be with me. And I am surprised that I still want to get married, and have that perfect wedding day. I look at these design blogs and see a photo, or an arrangement or an invitation and think, ‘I want that’. I’m not at the stage where I’m book marking or (heaven forbid) buying magazines and cutting things out to put in a scrap book. Just more… day-dreaming. I think.
EDIT: Forgot, another Kiwi song. This one an oldie by Headless Chickens: George
As I go about my day, I often think of things I’d like to write. And a part of me wishes I had an internal notepad to jot these things down. But alas, I don’t. And often by the time I come to the end of the day when I lie quietly in my bed, in my room, either I’ve forgotten what inspired me, my Mum had done her usual, or I am just too emotionally exhausted and just want to blob out in front of [insert here: True Blood | Outrageous Fortune | Community | etc. ].
So, today I’m going to make a half-hearted attempt to change that. Whilst I might not get to the thing I did want to blog about tonight, I did want to include something I had been thinking about for the last couple of days. In the name of promoting some New Zealand music, I wanted to include a song I really like by a kiwi artist, Tiki Taane:
Okay, only 15 minutes left. Certainly not enough time for work but enough time for a short post here. I haven’t really been able to get much work done today really asides from 2 hours on artnews.. after which the internet here decided to collapse, first https went down then ftp. It’s up now, but barely. Hopefully I’ll have better luck at home.
Over the last week I’ve been scouring blogs (yay Feedly), for new reads. In particular, I’ve been looking for Mum’s and Single Mum’s blogs. For anyone that reads here regularly knows how much of a hard time my Mum gives me on a daily basis. And when I’m feeling strong, I know what she’s saying is wrong. That she lives in her own world and it is NOT reality. But after a long week/month/year of it, there are points where I doubt myself. But in reading these blogs, I feel it starting to fade. I don’t need to be perfect. Even if my Mum claims she was and is. It doesn’t matter that I’m not perfect. And sometimes it is a good thing that I’m not. I would rather spend time with Ewan playing and having fun than spending all day and night scrubbing everything till perfection.
It’s gotten to the point where my Mum won’t let my own son eat his breakfast in case he spills it. So, he’s not properly learning how to feed himself. This morning, Mum told me off because I didn’t heat my son’s breakfast bowl in the oven before serving him it. I told her, that such wasn’t needed and she insisted that he liked it and somehow by not doing it, I was a terrible mother. I argued, if he did like it, it is because she’s instilling in him fussy OCD behaviours that are not normal. And I don’t want to encourage it. She wasn’t happy with me.
And unfortunately when she isn’t happy with me (when ever I disagree with her) it lasts for a long time. And has a lasting effect on Ewan and me. The last few days Ewan hasn’t been sleeping at night and has climbed into bed with me. Something he never does. So, sometimes it is easier to not argue with her, just to keep the peace for both myself and Ewan. Unfortunately she confuses silence with agreement. And frequently she’s come back to me the next day saying ‘Why didn’t you boil the water before washing dishes in it, like you said you would?!’
Anyways, back to the point which is what I started with. It is comforting reading other’s blogs. Independent blogs. And reading about others who have bad days, or struggle to manage. And most of these people aren’t working/studying/dealing with a psychotic mother.
I can’t wait to move. Just over 2 months till I move out of this house, and 3 months till I fly out. I hope it goes quickly.
A couple of new toys on the blog. Firstly, a listing of top commenters, ranked by number of comments placed on posts over the last 3 months or so. And also the blog list has been updated to to include and be ranked by update date. Pretty cool. I used to have one of those a while ago on my old RP blog.
I put two code things on the mud. One was a fix to the blog list, filtering out ones that hadn’t been updated in a long, long time. And also, fixing an issue with the kick command being abused in NPC combat. Now, you can only kick to start combat, but not every single round to get in a double attack. PC combat is, of course, different.
Made a yummy lamb roast last night, spiked with slivers of garlic and with a parmesan and herb fresh breadcrumb crust. It was (very) yum. The process wasn’t without danger, was chopping up the pumpkin for roasting and Mum decided to go into the cupboard in front of me, the knife slipped on the skin and yeah. Cut through my nail and a fair bit of my finger on the side. It’s a bit sore, but I’ll live.
Ewan’s taken to waking up midway through the night. Which has been a bit exhausting. I suspect that my Mum is (again) waking him up. Not intentionally, just not thinking when she does cleaning stuff in the middle of the night.
Us Playing at the Park Next Door.
This rock is in the next door neighbours front garden. Since he was little, Ewan has insisted it is a sleeping dinosaur.
Long hours today, from 11am to 11pm. Still got way too much to do on this shopping site. Still though, I enjoy what I do.. I just wish the first eCommerce site with Magento wasn’t quite such a large project. Would of rather of started with something smaller. But, if I can pull it off.. then yeah, good pay. And I’ll feel that much more confident going into the next one.
Started watching Samurai 7. Enjoying it a lot.
Shimada Kanbei (Yum)