Life Hacks Episode 1

Welcome back my fellow nutters, and please welcome the newest change to this blog. I have felt for a little while that my blog was starting to wander aimlessly through the wilderness that is blogging for fun and profit. The longer I do this, the more I realise I really am a teeny tiny fish in a massive pond. I am part of the audience to some of the most talented and brilliant writers the internet could possibly offer, and then there's this blog, which sometimes feels like the internet's version of that special child who sits in the corner of the yard stuffing berries up his nose.

I think my biggest problem is my title. It somehow implies that I am looking for ways to make myself sane again, so why am I not sharing them with you guys?? So today is the first episode in another new series called Life Hacks 101. And like all poorly thought out and quickly implemented ideas, it even comes with its own banner.

For anyone who doesn't know what a life hack is, it's basically just a short cut to doing something quicker, easier and in most cases cheaper than what was once done. Once upon a time this segment would have just been called life shortcuts 101, but these days unless you make something sound really technological, people just don't seem to be interested.

In this series I will teach you about a heap of shortcuts I have discovered over the years that make my life just that tiny bit easier. Some of these may already be common knowledge to a lot of you. But there is always someone somewhere who doesn't know everything that you do, so this segment is really for you. 

So todays life hack is a source of much frustration in my life, broken zip handles. For some reason whoever invented zippers forgot to ensure that the zip handle never fell off. Either that or I am super rough on my zips. If you were still able to open and close a zip without that little tab there this would not be a problem, but a lot of the times the loss of this tiny little flap of plastic or metal means the end of that zipper. Luckily for me this one is super easy to fix with the aid of something we all have plenty of in the house. Keychains. 

That's right, all you need to do is insert a keychain into the hole that the zipper tab has left behind and your zip has a new lease of life. Just make sure it isn't a keychain that you actually use or you'll have a bit of explaining to do about the new accessory now dangling from your car's ignition. In my case the new accessory is actually a couch cover.

At least I can now say I was using upholstery as a key accessory before it was cool.

As you can see from the dark stains on this couch cover, it needed to be removed, as I can't fit an entire couch in the washing machine. But thanks to my trusty old life hack, I was able to remove the cover with a minimum of swearing and scissors, and the couch now looks brand new again.

Well that's me done for the evening, Miss K is demanding I entertain her, so I'm off to go watch her jump around the play room like a loon. Stay awesome everyone.

Recipe - Taco Lasagna

Hello again my wonderful readers, I mentioned in an earlier post here that I was going to share a recipe with you guys for taco lasagna. I am actually hoping to make recipes more of a regular thing around here, possibly sharing one of my recipes a week with you guys.

The thing with food around my house is it isn't fancy. The meals we eat around here are usually quick and easy and cheap. Given I have a fairly fussy and demanding two year old on my tail for most of the day, I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. So the recipes I will be sharing here will be pretty basic, but they are tasty, and for the most part they pass the taste test of the toughest food critic I have ever met too. Today's post is basically just to test the waters as it was, so I'm not pulling out the big guns just yet, I'll save the fancy meals and the decent photography for future posts.

So todays recipe is pretty outside the box. I've only actually cooked this meal once, and I buggered it up too, so you guys have the added bonus of learning a few do not's in the process here. I'll start with the photo first, and hopefully that will explain the big mistake for me.

Photo courtesy of the incredibly low resolution camera on my phone.

Now in my house, we call this process caramelisation, because burnt is just such a horrible word. I have a theory that if you put a terrible meal in front of a well known cook, it automatically makes it look better, so here is Martha Stewart holding my lasagna.

Image Source

I'm guessing she's used to caramelised meals after her time in prison.

So to make a taco lasagna, you will need a few things.

1 pack of lasagna sheets (I use dried sheets because they are cheaper)

500g minced beef (I think Americans call it ground beef?)

2 jars tomato salsa

1 sachet of taco meat seasoning

1 onion

1 - 2 carrots

1 - 2 zucchinis

2 - 3 cups sliced mushrooms

Grated cheese (as much as you want)

Aluminium foil (this is absolutely vital if you want to avoid caramelising your own lasagna)

A deep sided oven proof dish

Pre-heat the oven according to the instructions on the lasagna sheets. 

Finely chop up your onion, and fry it in a pan until it is brown and soft. 

Add the minced beef and the taco seasoning to the fry pan, as well as however much water the taco seasoning sachet tells you to add. 

Cook until the meat is browned.

While the meat is cooking slice your vegetables thinly

Once the meat is cooked properly, take it off the heat. In your oven proof dish start layering the ingredients, starting with sheets of lasagna. You can really do it in any order that you desire, but I usually go pasta, meat, cheese, salsa, vegetables, pasta etc...

Once your layers go to the top of the dish (or until you run out of ingredients) sprinkle the top with a generous layer of cheese

Cover your entire dish with a sheet of foil, and bake according to the instructions on your lasagna sheets. To brown the cheese, take the foil off for the last ten minutes.

And that is it. One taco lasagna ready to serve. Hopefully without the black layer on top that needs to be removed with a jackhammer. If any of you are brave enough to try this recipe, please feel free to let me know how your meal pans out. If you can think of ways to improve it, I'd love to hear them too. 

Oh and I know that technically this isn't a real lasagna, and if Miss K's nonna ever sees this post we will probably be disowned from the family for crimes against Italian food, but I seriously don't have an hour to waste making bechamel sauces and tomato sauces and rolling my own pasta like she does, so I'm sticking with my hacked version.

So from me and Martha Stewart it is good night, and I'll see you guys again soon.

Accentuate the positive or a list of love

Hello again my awesome readers, I have decided today to take a break from the complaining, the constant nit-picking and the general bad mood that this blog can pick up on rare occasions to bring you guys a little bit of schmaltz.

No this isn't it...

So today is actually the 2 year anniversary of the day both my mother and daughter tried to die on me. So first I have to wish my mum a happy birthday, as this is her second anniversary as a zombie.

Source

Braaaaiiiiins!!!!

What's that you say? None of this is schmaltzy in the least?? Alright, I'll get to the point. While the 7th of April is a hard day for my whole family to get through, it serves as a huge reminder of exactly what we had to go through 2 years ago just to keep my little girl alive. And it also reminds me to stop sweating the petty stuff and remember exactly how much I love my daughter, even when she is making me pull my hair out in frustration. So today I am giving you guys a list of just some of the reasons why I love my little girl.

1. She loves to make people laugh. It gets her out of trouble most of the time if she can do something silly right when mum or I start lecturing her or telling her off. It is very hard to yell at Miss K when she is making you laugh.
2. She loves to dance. She cannot hear music without busting out some of her own special moves, including the sprinkler, thanks to my baby sister who thought it was a good idea to teach her how to disco dance.
3. She takes pleasure in the smallest of things, like a light bulb. Or an empty nappy box. I'm serious about that last one too, our current empty nappy box is on day three of play and doesn't look to be losing its appeal any time soon.
4. She makes everyone feel special, from her whole family to the strange lady whose hand she randomly shook in the middle of the chemist once, everyone who meets her immediately falls in love with her, just because she makes you feel so important for the short amount of time which you can hold her attention for.
5. She looks so peaceful when she's asleep. It is so easy to forget that several hours ago I was ready to throw myself out the closest window because she wouldn't eat her boiled carrots, because when she's tucked up in bed, she looks so innocent.
6. She is the most ticklish person I have ever met. There is barely a spot on her body that won't cause her to collapse into giggles if poked just right. This makes for a lot of fun when we play together.
7. She hates to see me cry. This doesn't happen often, but over Easter when we were in Melbourne, I was so tired and frustrated and it was 5am in the morning so I couldn't help but break down in front of her. She was so worried she came right up to me and grabbed my hand and used it to wipe away my tears. (No use getting her own hands wet right?)
8. She loves to be one of the big people. On the rare occasions that she wakes up in the middle of the night, nothing makes her happier than to be allowed to sit between mum and I on the couch for a conversation.
9. She tells the best stories. Of course I usually can't understand more than a few words of her garbled speech, but she becomes so animated when she's telling you something, you can't help but get swept up in the conversation, even if it makes no sense.
10. She loves to play pretend. Quite often if she feels that I have been spending too much time on the computer, she will crawl over to me barking like a dog, and I have to stop and give her a pat. She also loves it when we run around the lounge room pretending to be different jungle animals.
11. She is very musical. Her current list of instruments includes a guitar, a ukulele  two recorders, two sets of maracas, an accordion, a triangle, two tambourines, a drum kit and a keyboard. I'm thinking of hiring her out for parties as a one man band.
12. She loves making me happy. Sometimes it is as simple as putting her chair away after a meal without being told, but you can tell she feels so proud when she has done something that makes me happy.
13. There are times, usually if she gets hurt, or sick, that she doesn't want to know anyone else but me. To know that you are the most important person in someone's life always makes you feel special.
14. Her smile has the ability to cheer up even the worst of moods, making her a magnet for every family member who is having a bad day. And she always manages to cure their blues.
15. Without Miss K, I wouldn't have the title mum. Or the wrinkles that come with this job. Or the millions of memories that we have created together. Or the free hugs that come with being a parent. Or the pride. 

So there you have it. A small list of why I love my baby. I really could go on like this forever, but then I'd give you all diabetes, so I'll stop there for now. I'm off to get some sleep, right after I go look at Miss K in her cot one more time for the night. 

I'll be back again soon, but until then stay awesome, and I know a lot of you readers are parents too, so feel free to join in below and tell me some of the reasons why you love your kids. Lets see if you can add some more sweetness.

One of those moments when only mum would do.

A small victory is still a victory

So when you are a mum, the littlest things can be the greatest victories. For me today the greatest victory was getting Miss K to eat her dinner. For any of you who have been in my audience since day one, you will know that Miss K and I have been having fights about food for ages now. For any of you who haven't been here since the beginning, please feel free to visit some old posts, namely this one and this one. At first the fight was getting her to eat food that hadn't been pureed. Then we had to encourage her to feed herself. Now I am trying to get her to eat foods that she doesn't like. Namely vegetables.

Now I will admit that I have gotten lazy. It is much easier on my stress levels and ears to let Miss K get away with not eating her vegetables, and instead give her a Nutella sandwich or a bowl of cereal. But according to the experts, vegetables are good for you, so I decided today to start getting tough and forcing Miss K to start eating them. (Well actually it was decided some time ago that I needed to get tougher on Miss K, but again, lazy.)

So tonight's menu consisted of taco lasagna. (It seriously is nicer than it sounds, and I'll be sharing the recipe with you guys soon, so you can see for yourselves.) I have given this to Miss K a few times, with the same results. The combination of minced meat and vegetables means that she will have a few mouthfuls and then push the bowl away. But tonight that wasn't an option. I started by letting her sprinkle a generous amount of mozzarella cheese on top of her meal, as this sometimes is enough motivation to get her to eat a meal. But this time all she did was try to pick the cheese out and leave the rest of the meal behind. So I tried putting her in the naughty corner. All this did was cause her to chuck a massive tantrum. The last thing I could think of was feeding her myself. We had tears, we had choking, we had smacking (and Miss K wasn't too happy either.)  But I finally managed to get about half a bowl of healthy food into her. At this point we had been "eating" dinner for over half an hour and I was ready to give up. But she had eaten a decent amount of her dinner, and she was happy and full of energy until bed time, so I'm calling this one a win.

But like the baddies always say at the end of the movies "The battle may be over, but the war isn't won." This is a fight I see us having for years and years to come. So tonight's post is really just a reminder for future me, you've done this fight before, you'll do it again, and you can win.

Image courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

SHE ATE THE VEGETABLES!!!!!!

Spotlight on Mental Health - Becc's Story

Welcome back for our second episode in the Spotlight on Mental Health series. Today my guest is the lovely Becc from the website Take Charge Now.

Take Charge Now (http://www.takechargenow.com.au) is a personal blog written by Rebecca Thompson that follows her journey from sickness to sensational. It documents her path as she strives to take charge of her life, design a new lifestyle for her family and allows her to ponder life's little curve balls. If there is a positive to be found, she will be out there trying to locate it.

Becc's story is as follows;

Recollections of meeting the Black Dog

The Black Dog came to visit me some years ago. Thankfully after a hard struggle and the help of my Psychiatrist, Psychologist, GP and medication, I can say I have kept him at bay. The “other side” is a wonderful place to be, but the recollections of meeting the Black Dog never seem to fade.

The thing that sticks in my memory the most is the inability to function. My mind would not work, I could not remember anything, my muscles would tighten rigidly – there was no control. My days were filled with sleep, sleep and more sleep. On a good day that would mean 16 hours, on a bad day 20.

My brain was filled with fog, a sleepy haze. The only thing going on in that head of mine was make believe.....dreams maybe? How my husband stood by whilst I screamed, ranted and raved about things that never actually happened is truly amazing (we weren’t even married then!).

I was one of the lucky ones. Suicide has reared its ugly head in my extended family and it is a horrific experience for all. In my battle, I did not succumb to those thoughts. I believe the loss of my 3 brothers and the grief that I felt and watched my entire family go through ensured that I could never go to that extreme.

I was also fortunate in the fact that my Boss recognised the changes in me at work. He called it and I acted on it. I had the support of my now husband, family and friends. These people carried me through and even though I pushed them away, scared them to death with my texts and late night phone calls, they persisted.

Oddly enough, although it was my Boss who first realised what was going on, we did not tell my work colleagues at first. There were many before me that had broken down the stigma of depression within the workplace and yet, it was still not well understood, not well enough anyway.

I lost a part of myself back then. I recall a good friend describing me as having lost the twinkle in my eyes and thinking that’s a perfect description. I lost the vivacious, chatty and bubbly lady I once was, the extravert who could light up a room on entering. At least that is how my friends describe the changes.

Although I have come through to the other side, there is always an ongoing fear of falling into its clutches again. There is a residue that sticks to you, no matter how many years have passed. It also likes to keep giving....in my case there is still the ongoing battle with my anxieties (apparently depression and anxiety go hand in hand). There is also a real yearning for the person I used to be.

So what am I left with?

Luckily for me, my life!

I have changed in so many ways. However, I also continue to live a full and happy life full of gratitude and love. I have my own beautiful family and a life to be envied.

I am living proof that you can endure and overcome depression and then go on to have a wonderful, joyous and meaningful existence.

First of all, I have to say a big thank you to Becc for sharing her story with us. One thing I love about Becc is her refusal to let her depression beat her. There is always fear that you will relapse again, and it can be hard to stop that fear from taking over your life, but Becc is determined to have a good life, and that is a testament to her survivors spirit. I have also been touched by suicide in my extended family and I know how the pain can linger for years and years afterwards. For any of you who have enjoyed this story, please go to Becc's website and give her some of your special brand of love, and of course comments are welcome below as well.

Next week my guest isn't a blogger, and she doesn't actually have any mental illness, but she has lived the other side of this story, she has lived with a whole family full of crazy people. My little sister Nat has kindly offered to come along and tell us all what it feels like watching the people around you go through depression, so be sure to come along next Wednesday for a very interesting insight. 

And I am also looking for more contributors for this series, so if you are a survivor of mental illness, or you have lived through someone else's mental illness I would love to hear from you too, just click on the contact me button above and send me a message.

I'll be back again soon with more of my own brand of crazy, but feel free to entertain yourselves in the comments below until then. 

Easter and page views

Howdy Y'all I'm back again. I hope everyone had a great Easter, I'll get to Miss K's Easter shortly, but first I had to share some randomness with you guys. For anyone of you who have a blog, you'll probably spend a bit of time checking out your stats occasionally to find out exactly how many people you are reaching, and which posts are the most popular. I check mine every day (even though the experts say you really should only check them once a month) just to see where my traffic is coming from. Early on it seemed that most of my audience was comprised of Russian spammers who were only hitting my website in an attempt to get return clicks. For a little while they disappeared, but it seems they have come back today. I don't really mind, as it drives up my traffic, but it's always a bit disappointing to think that my audience didn't even read my awesome writing before moving on to the next target.

Now the thing that surprises me the most about my page views is my most popular post to date appears to be this one giving a list of all of the cutest actors in children's television. It seems that there is at least one other person out there who has a major crush on Gavin Stenhouse, because that is the name that appears the most in the Google search words list. On a slightly different note, Iconicles is back on Aussie television right now, so I get to enjoy watching him on a regular basis again. But it isn't as exciting anymore since I started following him on Twitter, as now I get up to the minute updates on his life any time I log into Twitter, so that's even better.

Now, on to Easter, as that is the real reason why I came on tonight. I made an agreement with Miss K's dad before her birthday that we would spend the whole weekend in Melbourne with his family, in exchange for me getting her to myself on her birthday. This was an ideal arrangement for me as Easter has never been my favorite pseudo holiday anyway, so I didn't mind sharing Miss K for the weekend, and I got to enjoy her birthday alone which was also awesome. So on Saturday Miss K and I hopped onto a train with about a hundred other people (not my first choice of transportation, but both Miss K's dad and nonna's cars crapped themselves last week, so we had no other way of getting to Melbourne.)

My relationship with Miss K's nonna has always been a bit tempestuous. When I was dating Miss K's dad, she and I butted heads on several occasions as she seemed to think I was always too hard on him, whereas I thought he was a lazy selfish no-hoper who was wasting his life away on porn websites. We have continued to butt heads on and off over the past three years, but have called a truce of sorts recently so that she can have a proper relationship with her granddaughter. Of course this means regular trips to Melbourne for Miss K and me, and weekends spent in a tiny house with the man I once refused to marry, and his mother. I try to take a step back when we're there so that Miss K and nonna can spend some quality time together, but this is hard for me, as I seem to be the only person there who thinks that children need boundaries, so I spend a lot of time either making Miss K cry by not letting her break every rule I have set out for her, or watching her nonna undermine all my hard work by letting her get away with everything.

But apart from biting my tongue all weekend, I got to watch Miss K have a lovely time, and here are just some of the photos of our weekend.

This is a real ashtray, not just an empty cigarette package being used as a makeshift ashtray. I had to take a photo, just because I thought it was so cute. 

This is three hours into our first afternoon. All that sitting around on public transport really takes it out of a baby.

This is the most delicious cider I have ever had. I only took this photo so I can remember the name the next time I find myself in the bottle shop, but I don't mind if any of you get there first and buy me a case...

A very blurry photo of Miss K and her dad bowling

Miss K's new Luigi doll that her dad won for her in a claw machine. One thing I can say about Miss K's dad is that he is an expert at winning arcade games.

A traditional Italian Easter cake that nonna made for Miss K. It did have a chocolate egg on the top at one stage, but Miss K got to it before I could take a photo

And sadly that is all the photos I took of the weekend. There was so much more going on, including lots of chocolate being consumed, me sumo wrestling with a 12 year old (and kicking his butt I might add) and a second birthday party for Miss K. Nonna's great nephews stayed with us on Saturday night and were completely charmed by Miss K, to the point that the thirteen year old actually volunteered to watch High 5 with Miss K while I took a break. There was also lots and lots of food, which is standard whenever the Italians get together to celebrate, and I'm certain I gained weight this weekend. 

So that was our Easter. I can't say I enjoyed myself completely, as I did have a very unsettled two year old to deal with, as is the case any time our routine is disrupted, but we're back home now and getting back into normal life nicely. 

I'd love to hear if any of you have any nightmare in-laws that you have to deal with on special occasions, especially if you can give me any coping strategies to help me get through the next visit, which will probably be Nonna's birthday in July.

I'll be back again tomorrow with a new spotlight on mental health, so be sure to come back to hear Becc's story, but until then, as always stay awesome.

Spotlight on Mental health; My story

Hello again my wonderful audience, today I am going to be doing something a little bit different. As many of you know, I have depression. Now I know in this one I am not alone. A survey done by the Australian Bureau of Statistics back in 2007 showed that 45% of Australians suffered from some form of mental illness at some point in their life. That is a staggering 7.3 million people in Australia alone.

Now despite the fact that mental illness is so wide reaching, there is still too much shame and fear put into the words, so I am going to do my bit in demystifying mental illness by playing host to people who want to tell their side of the mental health story. To get things started, I thought it would be best if I told my story first, to get the spirit of sharing going. So welcome all to the first Spotlight on Mental Health.

So I was diagnosed with depression over ten  years ago now. It shouldn't have come as a shock to me considering I come from a family with a very long history of mental illness, but it still scared the hell out of me when the doctor confirmed my mum's suspicions. I had no idea that mum had been suspicious for months. Apparently it isn't normal to lock yourself in the bedroom for 18 hours a day and sleep for most of that. Who knew? 

But it wasn't the constant sleep and withdrawing from everyone that pushed mum over the edge, it was the fact that I started cutting my wrists that forced her to drag me to the doctors. At the time I didn't realise exactly much I had changed over the past six months until the doctor started asking questions. That's when I started thinking about how I had been spending my life since leaving school. I had decided not to go on to university or TAFE and had gotten a job, but I didn't do anything apart from work and sleep. I had no desire to spend time with friends, or participate in any of my normal hobbies, or do anything other than sleep. I didn't feel sad or angry or anything except numb. And when things got too stressful I cut myself just to feel something.

Now I figured that the doctor had to be wrong about me. I wasn't depressed, I was just tired. Depressed people go around crying and yelling and talking to themselves all day. I just needed fifteen hours of sleep a night. As for the cutting thing, I just needed a way to relieve stress, it was no indication that I was ill. But with him and my mum both agreeing that I needed to start taking medication I quietly agreed and started taking anti-depressants. It took about two weeks for the meds to start doing their thing, and slowly I started coming out of my bedroom and interacting with the world around me again. And that's when I had to face my family. 

What I hadn't realised at the time was that mental illness doesn't just affect the individual, it affects everyone in their life. I had a lot of angry, hurt and confused family members (some of them just children), and a lot of damaged relationships that I had to work very hard to repair. I think it took mum a long time to trust that I wasn't going to do anything stupid again, especially as for the next eight years, I kept doing stupid things. I hurt myself over and over again in various ways, I made terrible decisions about who I would date, or sleep with, or hang out with, and I kept trying to self destruct. Luckily for me my mum is an incredibly understanding and loving woman who could see that I needed help, and was always there for me. The same goes for the rest of my family. I truly believe I wouldn't be as OK as I am today if it wasn't for them.

And I am OK. I'm not completely cured, and I probably never will be. This is something that I am going to have to live with for the rest of my life, but because it has been ten years now I finally have it to a point where it is controlled. I take my medications, I talk to my family, I remind myself that I am incredibly lucky to be where I am and I never take the good days for granted. And I write. This blog has been the cheapest therapy I have ever had, and you guys are the best counsellors too. 

So that's my story. It is far from over, I still have bad days where I can't even force myself to clean the house, but I am prepared for that now, and I know how to deal with it. But mine is just one of millions and millions of stories, so over the coming weeks, I am going to have some very special guests come along and share their stories with you as well. The first one is coming up next Wednesday and it will be from a lovely lady Becc, from Take Charge Now, so be on the lookout for that next week.

I'd like to finish by extending an open invitation to any of my readers out there who have a story to tell on mental illness, either as a patient, or as a family member of someone who has a mental illness, to get into touch with me, either through the contact me button at the top of this page, or through my Facebook or Twitter pages. The only way we can remove the negative is by speaking out.