Weekend Coffee Share

If we were having coffee, you’d notice it was actually Monday morning here in the Southern hemisphere. This is flying under the radar of east coast USA, which is a cool (possibly frigid and snow-bound) 16 hours behind us. Therefore it’s only Sunday night somewhere in the world. I’ve already had 2 coffees and am very very ready for my third.

I’m dying here a bit. I had my job interview last Friday. It went really really well. Even if I don’t get the job, I’m not sure what more I could have done. I was open, friendly, answered the questions (which were easy and simple) to the best of my ability. I felt comfortable, at ease, poised and prepared. As I may have mentioned last week, I had a coaching which enabled me to get the best out of my elevator pitch, and illuminated my skills and strengths. I now know what I do really well, and I know I’m passionate about research. It has taken me until the last few weeks to work that out.

They have promised to call me today so my sleep has been rather interrupted. I’ve taken off the phone’s mute button; the default position. I’m not altogether sure they’ll ring today as tomorrow is Australia Day and it’s a holiday – there may be a Wednesday phone call instead.

But of course it’s Monday now and do you think I’ve done any meaningful work since I awoke? No, nope, non, nada, nyet. I DID get up and shower but my day has been otherwise characterized by lack of movement. Yet, I have a list of Things To Do. I have a DECRA to complete. I have some private teaching to plan (if I don’t get the job). I have 20 hours of editing work to do. I have a book proposal to finish and a monograph to write.

There’s plenty I could be doing. Dammit.

If we were having coffee I’d be telling you about the great weekend my hubby and I had in Sydney, that shiny, fast paced city. That we saw friends and shows and that I felt quite at home in a town that’s neither like Melbourne nor Brisbane. I’d be telling you about the rain that was a constant of the weekend.

I’d be telling you about a show we saw, ostensibly for children, composed by the brilliant Kate Miller-Heidke, called The Rabbits. It’s an allegorical tale about the 1788 invasion of Australia by the British, and the rape, destruction and desecration of the First Peoples of Australia (and their land) in the name of that abominable Roman concept of Terra Nullius (nobody’s land). It’s done beautifully, simply, and breaks your heart. Because its story is truth.

I’m an inhabitant of this land and have been all my life. My Irish, Scottish and English ancestors came here in the 1850s and worked the land, bred, and experienced both prosperity and privation. Even though for many years I was a single parent, poor and marginalised, I cannot imagine my children being removed from me and my homeland violated. I cannot imagine being part of a race who were so oppressed that the scourge of this oppression continues to this day through poverty, violence, drug and alcohol addiction, serious health problems, unemployment, lack of access to good quality food and water, education, housing, healthcare and legal services. And yet The Rabbits (published in 2000, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan), this simple tale based on a picture book, let me imagine all of this and more.

(Copyright 1998 Shaun Tan. “They came by water”. Oil on canvas)

The book has won numerous awards and the opera (in all honesty it’s the most cross-genre work I’ve seen in forever because it includes operatic conventions, panto, pop, blues, and other elements I haven’t thought of yet, set on a stage) has been beautifully realised by Miller-Heidke. She is a composer of special quality. Trained as an opera singer, she has carved out a great career as a pop singer/song-writer. Her music becomes more sophisticated and beautiful the older she gets, yet it is mainly diatonic, tuneful and easy for the lay person to enjoy. The more educated ear also love her work because it sounds easy but just isn’t. She has that rare gift of eliciting emotion through key changes that a listener won’t understand unless you’ve been trained in it. And even then I cried. I just wanted to weep and weep and weep, but as I was not alone I felt hampered by social niceties, and therefore didn’t. Great art has the capacity to move you in all sorts of ways and this work moved me like few others. Take a look: The Rabbits

If we were having coffee I’d tell you about how good it was seeing an ex-student of mine act and sing beautifully in another show we saw called The Fantasticks. It’s a rather flimsy tale and with sinister undertones not fully realised in the rather meh production, but he was great. My lovely student. Very proud.

If we were having coffee you’d be one of several people I’ve managed to have coffee with over the last few days. The Sydney trip was not just for a job interview; it was an opportunity for rare catch-ups with friends and acquaintances. There was afternoon coffee with E who braved simply appalling traffic to get into the heart of town, a late supper with S who had just done a very awkward singing telegram, and brunch with one of my oldest friends C and his son, who is delightful, precocious and super bright. DH managed to be brave during it all – he’s not a friends-type of person, but he enjoyed the interactions nevertheless.

And if we were having coffee you’d notice I’m a little bit annoyed that the possums got to my herb garden on the back porch. It was only a matter of time, of course. Thus far they’re particularly fond of dill, parsley, and coriander. They’ve nibbled half-heartedly at the sage and won’t touch the rosemary, and aren’t interested in the basil, thyme or the oregano. The saddest bit is they’re not at all worried about the dog, who goes psycho when they arrive on the porch for their evening repast.

So now that we’ve had coffee and I’ve been procrastinating yet again, I’ll leave you with thanks and an invitation to join me again. Maybe not on a Monday morning, but on a lazy Sunday.

Au revoir!

(Weekend coffee share is hosted by Diana at Part-Time Monster. Why not join in the chat?)

 

 

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The Christmas special

This might be the last blog I write in 2014, as my time gets taken up with a ROAD TRIP south and Christmas celebrations with the family. I take a moment now to reflect on all the stuff that I have been through this year, and my plans for 2015. Take heed: it’s a long post. Grab a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Firstly, my beautiful daughter M. After coming out as transgender in September 2013, she moved unwillingly up north to Brisvegas in January of this year, to be cared for and supported by me and her step-father. This was a traumatic move for her, given her dislike of the hot humid state generally. She has been through a lot. So have we all as a family, now. M’s experiences as a transgender mtf woman have been typical of this marginalised group. She has been misgendered, she has suffered discrimination and abuse from trolls in Logan (a bogan suburb now proven beyond doubt), and despite help from health care professionals and a truck load of pills, she has suffered mightily from her own demons. These demons were the hardest to manage.

Before she found peace in her appearance with a stonking great new haircut and gorgeous red dye job, she was seriously depressed about it. Her male-pattern hair growth and male looks cause her great heartache, and she often thinks about suicide. My daughter is tall, model slender, and, to my mind, absolutely beautiful as a trans woman. As the female hormones kick in and the testosterone blockers do their work, she is becoming more feminine-looking, softer, and smoother, with clear, fine white skin and beautiful grey-green eyes. But she doesn’t yet see herself that way. She started hurting herself. It was a low point for me as a mother to see my beautiful girl cut into herself and hate herself so much.

It has taken quite a bit of encouragement to get her to see her health-care providers and manage her condition. She is not out of the woods yet. But already her increased medication is improving her well-being, and she is in contact with her health-care providers who have been very supportive. And of course, she talks to me, and I to her. Talking helps, and we are starting to see the triggers for her unhealthy behaviours. One of them is mis-gendering by strangers. She needs to call them out for it. Another trigger is her appearance and hair style. She needs to feel in control of that, and have enough funds to cover her look. I’m sure there are other triggers, and I’m sure one of them is me, when out of fear and concern I say things that might inadvertently hurt her.

But my daughter, despite living in the margins and interstices of life, can be incredibly black and white, and tends to stubbornness. Actually, she has always been as stubborn as a mule. Nothing there has changed since she was 2. And, bless her, she sometimes fails to give a little. We parents have to do all the compromising, and most of the time it’s fine. But there are some minor moments when we also need that compromise from her, and this is when the problems arise. Mostly it’s about the condition of her room, or her sporadic contribution to the housework, or the people she invites to stay over without asking us, or her clothing when she is going out with us. Stupid things. Adolescent things. Things that mean nothing in the grand scheme of life, but that mean a lot in the day-to-day living.

I finally snapped a few weeks ago and realised I needed support from others in a similar situation. I’ve contacted PFLAG in Brisvegas and already have had the most wonderful outpouring of support from parents with transgender adult children, who, like me, need someone to talk with and to share stories with.

But, more importantly, I’ve received the most wonderful support from my friends and family and work colleagues. They have been understanding, quiet, and caring. After all, there’s very little they can say or advise me on – they do not have the experience of this. Instead, they have listened, silently offered their friendship and love, and for that I am truly grateful. One great woman is Deb. Deb is M’s employer. M, with help from me, my boss and Deb, was given work near my work’s local coffee shop. M is fast becoming a great employee, given up to 25 hours work a week at the moment while another employee is on maternity leave. Deb has been a marvel of patience and love and I don’t know how to thank her enough.

Second on my list of 2014 happenings, I finally submitted my PhD. Today is the day when the reports are due back. As if. (Actually, I just checked online – one is already back. And now my stomach is churning.) But who knows? I certainly know I will be a Dr by this time next year, and with any luck I can call myself Dr by March next year, when it actually counts. In the end, the last gasp to the finish line wasn’t nearly so horrible as others make out. I took small vacation breaks to write in: 3 days here, a week there. And at the end, it was 2 hours here, a day there. After shrinking from my Lit review for most of the 5 years, I finally sat down to do it in July and found a way through. It was a rewarding, engrossing time of discovery and, once again, epiphany. The last 3 months of my PhD weren’t hard, as I have previously reported. On the advice of a friend, I compiled my entire thesis into one working document, formatted it early, got most of the frontispieces done (although obviously missed something as I had to keep going back and revising it for stupid bureaucratic reasons), and organised the appendices early too. That way, I was just adding to the lit review and the reference list as I went. My final weeks were about me reading the whole document through, finding tiny edits and enormous sentences and fixing both. In the end, I was writing as if I was dancing. It felt joyful.

But I didn’t really count on the grief I felt at finishing this big thing, and not having something else to work towards in the future. My job is peripatetic, without security, and I have no way of knowing what income I will receive next year. As someone who has struggled to get by for so long, I am rather sick of it. I have teaching at university since 2008, I’ve published and will continue to do so, I’m researching, I’m doing everything a good girl entering academia should do, but am struggling to convert all this work into a full-time gig. And I’m angry at the people who take the system for a ride and refuse to contribute while people like me are on the sidelines waving their arms about saying “pick me, pick me!” Anyway, grief and anger have been my friends the last month or two. Not helped by M’s emotional turmoil, of course.

Thirdly, work. Work has been engrossing, rewarding, at times frustrating and also heartbreaking, when the people you teach, care about and care for, sometimes reward you with insensitivity and thoughtlessness. But at the same time my expertise is getting ever better, my approach more thorough, my interactions with work colleagues more relaxed. It has been a good year. I teach too much and it is exhausting work, and it is certainly not something I would have wanted for myself when I began my performing career, but I’m pretty good at it. But there’s no denying I would like to balance my teaching work with research and more performance. All to come, I guess.

Fourth, travel. This year has mostly been about me escaping home for anywhere else. Noosa in QLD, Aireys Inlet in Victoria, Montville; all these places I have stayed at to finish my PhD. And of course, there’s NYC. A big trip but not a perfect one. Note to self – leave DH to his own devices so I can shop without him being all grumpy guts in the corner.

Fifth, house and home. We’ve been planning our renovations and we have money actually sitting in the bank gathering dust (certainly not gathering interest, FFS). But it’s not quite enough to do all we want to do, and the plans have stalled and my designer, who has great ideas, is very bad at staying in touch. DH and I are both annoyed, but I am particularly annoyed because I cannot keep teaching in my studio space – it’s just not good enough or quiet enough for the money my students are spending on me to educate them. The waiting around has become a pain in the butt.

Sixth, Poppy love. I love her, she loves me, nuff said. Oh! And I’ve finally worked out how to artfully clip her poodle fur using the right equipment, so it should be easier and cheaper now on to clip her ourselves. Huzzah.

Seventh, shows. Lots and lots of shows. So many shows. Many, many shows. Am I showed out? Nah. Love it. Bring it. My experiences make me more critical, but this is a good thing. Always aim for perfection, even if it’s impossible to reach. Highlights? Desh at the Brisbane Festival, Honeymoon in Vegas on Broadway, and It’s Only a Play, also on Broadway. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and Into the Woods at our place. Rigoletto at Opera Queensland and Frizstch’s last conducting gig with QLD Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler’s 3rd. Lowlights? Old, outdated and overblown: Aida at the Met, The New York Theatre Ballet with a turkey of a Swan Lake.

Eighth, DH and me. It has been a huge year. He has taken on the top job at our workplace, and I have been finishing my PhD, and my trans daughter has been living with us. It has been a bit of a rocky time, and at times we have struggled to maintain our connection to each other. It’s there, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes other commitments get in the way of a strong, loving connection with one’s life partner. But he is coming on a road trip with me, and we have to spend 3 days in a car together. That’s a good thing! And when we head to the beach house (my folk’s place at Aireys Inlet) I think he really will relax. Even his work colleagues are beginning to complain that there’s no evidence of tapering off at his work! In other words, he came dashing into the top job and everyone has been frantically dashing about ever since, trying to keep up. I think they want him to go away on holiday. For a long time. Me? Well, I long since stopped trying to keep up with my workaholic hubby. We pull together pretty well, and I bully him into stopping work every now and then.

I’m sure there’s more. But now I have to go shower, get ready and lunch with a fabulous friend. Happy Christmas, everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It has been a month since my last confession…

I’m not Catholic. Never was, despite my surname. So, apologies for stealing this confessional statement. But, wow! Hasn’t time flown!

No news is good news, right? Well….kinda. In my life this month, a bunch of stuff has been happening – mostly good, some not so good.

The new car is AWESOME. I love driving it. Tick!

My diet is TERRIBLE. But I’ve not gained any weight that I can tell. And I’m back on the straight and narrow today. Tick!

My exercise regime is LAUGHABLE. But I’m working on it. Little tick for motivational purposes.

My work life is FANTASTIC. I love my job. I have a minor yearning for some performance stuff but otherwise I have the perfect gig. Now to make it a permanent tenured position (never going to happen, but hey, a girl can dream). Tick!

My family life is WONDERFUL. I love my husband. We are easing into a lovely place – teasing yet caring, understanding of each others’ scruples but not averse to raising the eyebrow on occasion. Or the ire. I love my boys and miss them terribly but I saw them just recently and spent guilt money on them because I can. My extended family are all great and doing amazing things. Tick!

My social life is OK – could be better – I have little time to visit friends and have not called anyone lately, even though I’m a constant on FB. Bad Jessie. Must call friends and SEE them. No tick – a cross instead.

My PhD study is AWFUL. I have no time to work on it consistently, I have even less time to care about it at the moment, and I got the most horrible response back regarding the gaping flaws in my Methods Chapter. So I’m taking time off it again. Because I’m sick of it and I want a new supervisor who is pleasant and personable and who is a mentor and whose caring approach makes me want to do better. Right now I feel nothing but RAGE. No tick here. Cross.

The house renovations are SADLY in hiatus while our weekends are busy, but we are in the planning phase of the next job. If my youngest boy comes to live with us I will have to find another place to work because we can’t all fit into the house as is. And we will need to renovate the interior in order to get everyone to fit. This could be fun AND expensive. Half tick for planning, at least.

The dog is getting BETTER, calmer, and her training is going quite well. I’m a bit lazy about it and we rarely have time to do much, but she’s getting there. She’s a bit neurotic around the kids, who tend to psych her up a bit and make her jumpy. She growls at us when she is on her bed at night sleeping (with her eyes open), and we walk past. We are training her out of that, too. Half tick for perseverance and her ability to sit, drop, leave it, and sit on her mat.

Finally, our spending is a tad OUT OF CONTROL. This is what we bought yesterday. Because hubby was complaining about the poor result we were getting from our coffee machine (5 years old and is starting to fail a bit), and he wanted a new one. And I wanted a red one. We got a new, red, expensive, beautiful machine: a Breville 900CB. It’s awesome. Truly.Our coffee now tastes amazing and the machine was laughably easy to set up. But no tick for thrift. Big cross for being a spendthrift.

So, there you go. Ticks: 5 full, 2 half. Crosses: 3. Hail Marys required: none. I’m an atheist. Looking forward to when those crosses on my PhD become ticks, and when our spending is pulled back – this will NEVER happen because we want to renovate the house and that’s exxie. I can, at least, do something about my friends. See y’all soon. xxx

 

Finding the inspiration or losing the will.

A friend of mine has, she felt, finished her thesis. At 91,000 words, she thinks she might be done. Not only do I have serious pangs of envy that she has “finished”, I envy her ability to just get on and “do it”. Obviously, nattering about in a blog like this ensures that of course I will NOT get on and do it, so I’d better get started before I lose the will. My dear friend R has kindly offered to BRING me the Stake Case Study Research book from the home library in QLD, which is definitely going above and beyond the call of good friendship. (She is also coming to the UK for this study trip, just in case anyone was wondering why a friend would offer to hop on a plane and bring a book here all the way from Australia.)

Some minor irritations today: I hate underfloor heating – it takes ages to warm up and cool down, and now the temperature which was too high is now too low. Can’t work the bloody machine and the instructions are worse than useless because they provide only half the information one needs. And I hate hate hate the new Gmail compose experience. They are trying to make email more like informal text, but actually, I use email more like letters. They formalise things and one needs the whole page for this. Gmail need to get a grip and realise that email is basically for formal letter writing and not to mess with something that was working just fine, thank you very much.

I’m having a gripe morning. Sorry. Back to work.

 

Kapow! Bam! Zook!

Despite crappy diet and relatively poor exercise, I managed to lose another half kilo (1 lb) this last few weeks. It’s not as if I haven’t been agonising over every little potato entering my mouth: I have. With the house painting and the entertaining children and the holiday season, eating out and all, I’m rather grateful I’ve managed to stave off the worst of the chocolate, wine and icecream binges, and I’m slowly reducing the alcohol consumption again. Result: tight buns and weight now a very respectable 65.3 kilos, and my BMI a healthy 23.7. If I stay on the straight and narrow for the next few weeks, this should reduce further. The scale nearly – nearly! stopped on 64.8. But then it didn’t. But I’m pretty sure it will drop down next week. The main challenge, like any long term goal, is to stay focussed and committed to staying fit and healthy, and reaching my goal of 59 kilos. Time to up the cardio again, go swimming and running, and walk the puppy.

Oh, and I am comfortably leg-pressing 180 kilos. When I say comfortable, I mean, that’s really quite easy. Bailey-the-trainer upped all my weights today after the first round. It was good. For the most part. He’s pretty impressed with my appearance at the moment – I’m finally getting some definition in my body, under all that fat! I’m losing my ferdubbedders (nana arms) and I can now see some of the muscles working.

All my friends have been super supportive and hubby has been best of all. Hubby’s enjoying Quinoa salads and we’ve not eaten pasta or rice in months (I haven’t, at least), and I think, secretly, he loves the new physical, high energy me. 🙂

It’s also great to have friends and family commenting on my weight loss, telling me how good I’m looking! I hated being 75kgs, and I realised, when I could barely bend over to put my shoes on, that I need to stay healthy for the future, not just look good for today. Bring on old age, I say!

So, health and fitness goals for the next two months: lose another 4 kilos, get down to 61.5 kilos (135 lbs), get to 3 PT, circuit and boxing classes per week, do yoga and a swim on Sundays. Drop the sneaky glasses of wine except maybe twice a week (date night; going out); maintain 1330 kcal intake per day, with one day off per week for naughty metabolism boost. There. That should do it.

And to all those people who think “slimming creams” and “diet pills” work: no, no they don’t. Regular exercise, good diet. The only things that work. I’m living proof! Someone asked me how I did it. I said, sagely, because I’m now super wise about these things (hah! not), diet and exercise and a weekly personal trainer to keep you on the straight and narrow. Calorie counting, using a website to track your changes, however small, and developing an awareness of how your physical health affects your mental health and quality of life. And finding supportive, caring people (even if you have to pay them!) to help you in your weight loss quest. And, finally, caring about it, and doing something about it. I cared, I’ve done something about it.

Floods in Queensland

It has been a few days since my last post: Queensland has suffered its worst ever floods since white settlement. It has been a disaster, with 16 people so far losing their lives to flash flooding. Even our house was considered at risk. Luckily, our house was spared, and, thanks to a brilliant disaster plan by Queensland government, the worst possible result was averted in Brisbane, although people in Toowoomba, Grantham and other towns in the Lockyer Valley were not so lucky.

Can’t say too much more, I’m still processing this whole event. It has meant huge disruption to Brisbane, including no access across the river, power disruptions, and other serious problems. Many people have lost their entire homes and businesses. The brilliance of Queenslanders was never more in evidence than now – many people I know have bought mops, buckets, gloves and wellies to go help those in need and some centres have been overrun with volunteers. Amazing community spirit has emerged. I feel pretty hopeless: can’t go anywhere as we have the children, but we have family members needing help, so we’ll do what we can for them.

The Christmas Madness descends

Yep, it begins. Monty’s birthday is early enough that we miss the worst of it, but from here on in I will have no solace until the New Year. I am supposed to be working today. This means that I am planning on spending some time doing the newsletter for ANATS (my final one); doing some work on the ARC, and planning my Xmas concert. The Xmas concert is the easy bit. Provide music for the accompanist, plan the rehearsal times before hand, ensure that there is afternoon tea and cake afterward. Plan the concert event, create a running sheet, print out the program. Super dooper easy. It’s all the other work that’s crapola hard thinking work. I have to get the ARC full first draft done this week. Why did I say I was going to do this??!!

Mum and dad are coming to Brissie on Friday. Thus, I need to prepare their room, plan the Xmas dinner being held here on Sunday night (same day as the concert – get it all over and done with at the same time, hence madness). I need to clean the house and buy Xmas gifts for the family: Haz and Adam. I need to buy gifts for my boys, although I have already bought them mock gifts.

And, then there’s Scott. What do I get for the man who wants for nothing, who is notoriously picky about clothing and who does not need stuff (except perhaps a new car)? I’m lost there. If I buy him something for the house he will accuse me of Indian giving. If I buy him clothes he will accuse me of trying to dress him in outfits that don’t work (and he’s right). I WAS going to buy him a desk but he has bought himself one already. He knows what to get me: I’ve been signposting for the last month. But him: urgh. I’m stuck.

And then, there is my work. My own work. My study, my lovely lovely data. Oh, forget about that – I don’t have time to even think of it! Next year, next year. Forget about December: too much happening.

In my home town… and missing it!

I’m in my home town this weekend and I’m missing it badly. A visceral desire for a return to its pleasures and its Melbourne attributes. I’m here and I’m in the moment, loving the moment, missing the moments all the time, and not missing Brisbane at all right now. Oh, fickle me. How quickly I throw off the shackles of loyalty and adoptive responsibility for the preferences of childhood memories. Oh, what treachery. And I’m back in a fortnight, all too ready to plunge myself into the pleasures of Melbourne all too soon. Oh, I hate me sometimes.

 

Solutions to the old and tired life: get active

Well, after a fairly exhausting conference – particularly if one is presenting – and saying goodbye to my 18 yr old son who has decided that life in Melbourne is more to his liking than life in Brisbane, I discovered the best way to get over the grief and sadness and tiredness of his going is to get active. Get busy, get cleaning. It so happened that the hard rubbish collection was due over the weekend. We took the opportunity to get rid of old filing cabinets and the usual collection of mechanical detritus on our front lawn. Funny, to say the least, that curb burglars then mussed up our neatly piled up junk and took the bits they preferred, leaving the complete dross behind.

It was such a relief to get rid of old and unwanted things, even those which had served me so well, including the old colour printer and various other implements. We removed old broken things and even said good bye to a working cathode ray tv. We noticed that nearly every household was getting rid of their old tvs – it was sad to see the passing of an era, but, like us, I guess people, once they had tried the new tvs, couldn’t get rid of the old ones fast enough. Curb burglars were raiding the insides of them and leaving the cathode ray in the box – there’s probably gold in there. I said goodbye to an old, very good quality mini Sony stereo – the radio still worked, but various connections weren’t working so well anymore, and the CD player had ceased to work years ago; plus no-one plays tapes anymore… I hope the person who took it has a great time with it – the speakers are excellent.

We moved rooms around, set up a really lovely guest bedroom with the spare parts from Blake’s life – his bed, the desk, his storage units from Ikea, and rearranged Zoe’s room. She is thrilled with her new/old Ikea storage unit and the crappy desk which we will paint pink. Her room is fully set up now with the old computer (not connected to the internet) and she couldn’t be happier, even if her furniture is a mish mash of old cast offs, like castaways on a desert island, in her room.

And, to top it off, I made a lamb roast which the children wolfed down. They were lovely to me during my grief-stricken day. But I am better now. I spent money I don’t really have on things I don’t really need for the studio; – well, I DO really need them, but I could JUSTIFY NOT getting them on the basis of cost and cash flow. I bought an HP monitor – 20″, cheap as chips, and a desk chair (another one) for my own desk. And the children set up our Christmas trees, which has lightened my mood considerably. I’m so much happier about things now, even while I continue to mourn for my boy – I will miss him dreadfully. But he’s not dead, he will no doubt come and visit throughout the next year and I have finally paid off his school fees. That’s it – the last of them gone, and the chance now for me to get my credit card bills down to a dull roar. I’m planning on paying it off next year and reducing the limit from $15000 to $7500. I haven’t paid it down for years and I’m sick of paying the interest and living beyond my means. So that’s in hand, too. If I pay it off at $1000 per month or thereabouts, it will be no time before it’s completely gone and then the saving can begin in earnest. I want to own my own house!!!!