This past fortnight there have been a surplus of inconceivable tragedies among people we Love and admire.

I am white knuckle praying for friends who are waiting to hear back on their five year old daughter’s biopsy.  I am speechless and clueless how best to help a kindred spirit as he holds a bedside vigil next to his soulmate.  They are the real deal, no less than Grumpy and I, and nobody knows if she will ever wake up and what life will be like if she does.

There’s more than enough trial and tragedy swirling around to fill several blogs, and I’ll spare you a list, but I wanted to talk about it because that’s what I do.  I also overshare with visuals, and right now I am feeling sad and vulnerable and lucky me, I was scrolling through looking for a picture of our roadster to send to my friend Danielle and I came across a prime example selfie to illustrate.

Sometimes, when shitty things happen, people cause irreparable hurt by trying to say the right thing.  I am absolutely guilty of this I have no doubt.  But I Love people… and I actually physically hurt for them when tragedy strikes.

No two people will need or want the same thing when they are kicked in the fucking head by tragedy or blindsided by life altering events.

I read a beautiful blog on a friend’s wall once.  She’s an intelligent young woman, caring for her mother with dementia.  She still finds time to Love and support all who are blessed enough to cross her path.  I think about this blog when the shit hits the fan for someone I Love, and seeing as I genuinely Love a tonne of people, I’m given plenty of opportunity to put it to use.

Here’s the thing.  Sometimes, there is just no reason for shitty things happening.  Saying there is kind of a dick move IMHO.  Stealing their thunder or saying you know how they feel, or forcing your spiritual beliefs hoping to help, robs the people struggling through the fucking trenches of life the right to be angry, to grieve, and to handle the situation however the fuck they need to.

So, today, I have to say the only thing I definitely know, is that I just don’t fucking know much.  I don’t know why good people get tested while sociopathic pricks sometimes seem to drift through life unscathed.  I do not know why sometimes it feels like you can handle anything and life is beautiful, and then there are days when you are forced to question everything that falls on your lap.  I do not know why cancer.  I do not know why poverty.  I do not know why greed.  I do not know why corruption.  I don’t know why rape.  I don’t know why misogyny. I don’t know why bullies. I do not know why so fucking much.

I do know this:

The sun will rise each day, if you are ready for it or want it to or not.

There will be moments of joy and pain.  There will be a lot of filler and waiting and hoping and nothing much at all going on.  And then there will be times when we are given a chance to do great things in a moment or with your whole fucking life.

Things will happen that make your heart want to jump out of your fucking chest and sing THE HILLS ARE ALIVE from some lofty Austrian mountain meadow.

And there will be times when you simply won’t want to breath another breath.

But we have to be here for all of it.

Love and strength to those of you shovelling through serious shit.  I have no idea what to say, or do, or how to help… but I promise I Love you and my heart breaks and my eyes won’t dry today thinking about you.

And to those of you having an upswing or feeling magic and joy… Embrace it, enjoy it and write it down somewhere if you can, because the joyful feeling will always come back, even if you are afraid you might never feel it again.

Have a good weekend.  And THANK YOU for reading.  I haven’t written for pleasure in weeks and I really needed to get this stuff out.

XXOO

Dee

A friend (Michelle) is a motivated fitness and nutrition expert wrote me a diet plan.  I need to print it out and start following it.  The issue is that the days are busy and the nights are exhausting so something as simple as printing and shopping to get started keeps falling int the too hard basket.  I’ll print it out while I am in at the office today…  I mean it this time!

MEANWHILE.  The Love of my life Phteven has informed me that we are also starting something called the 5:2 diet.

Here’s the link to the doco that got Grumpy all fired up to try this new diet for anyone who might be interested:

The basic premise has something to do with fasting twice a week to halve the amount of some nasty hormone that is released if you eat heaps of protein or something. In the coles notes version Grumpy imparted to me yesterday, he explained there’s a hormone that makes you fat, gives you cancer, causes diabetes.

According to the documentary I have not yet watched, there are little people who don’t make a lot of this bad hormone, and they live for aaaagggggeessss apparently.  Steve was explaining this all to me in the car and the kids overheard and chimed in with:  “Oh, Hobbits live for AGES!  Everyone knows that.” Cute kids.  They make me laugh, so I shall keep them a bit longer I suppose.

Okay.  Whatever.  I am in this marriage for better or worse so if he insists we do this thing I will give it a good honest varsity try.

For 5 days of the week I can eat WHATEVER I like.  However, I will be trying to stick to Michelle’s diet on these days.

On the fasting days, I am allowed no more than 500 calories.  Do you know how much food 500 calories is.  FUCK ALL.  That is the actual amount of food that you are able to eat before reaching 500 calories.

In REAL terms, fuck all food would be:  Four slices of bacon, or five bananas.  One cream cheese bagel or a frappe…

So I am currently tossing up if I should take a “before” picture today and then document the journey back to MILFdom.  Getting to be tight like a tiger is going to take some doing as I’ve successfully perfected the chubby mom-jean genie and for real frumpy thing lately.  And because I have no intention of staying this fat, I have not bought appropriate summer clothes for my current curvaceous self.

Sigh.  Okay, so here’s the “Before” shot from today.  I guess I have to wear the same outfit for the after shot and blow everyone away with my svelte self.

So that is me at 70kg.  I have no idea what it is in pounds, but for someone who is hobbit height such as myself, it is rather a lot.

So, bring on the starvation twice a week, and then hopefully some results as well.

Have a great day everyone.

Dee

When I was young, I knew so much.

Seriously, I was an expert on heaps of shit.  I was an expert on some music I liked and memorising lyrics and singing those songs with my friends.

I was an expert on how fucking fabulous I would be as a parent compared to my lame ass parents who kept me from being a social ninja (disclaimer:  no amount of parental intervention or lack thereof would have made me a social ninja as I was an overly emotional weirdo with social anxiety who always went WAY too far with shit).

I was definitely an expert on how I’d change the world once I won my first grammy and how fame would not change me and I would be the most gracious and caring saint of an adored celebrity.

I was an expert on how lame heaps of stuff was.  I was an expert on how fabulous some other shit was.  I probably had a functioning strategy for creating world peace, if ONLY SOMEONE WOULD FUCKING LISTEN TO ME!

So, I’m pretty old now and the strangest thing has happened.  I’ve realised, that I really, truly don’t know what the fuck is going on a good chunk of the time.

Seriously.  I have given birth to four fabulous humans.  They all seem to be simultaneously experiencing different difficult phases and in varying levels and degrees of distress and delinquency.  I read articles, actively seek advice, I enlist the help of experts to assist and support myself and the kids… All of this happens with differing degrees of success.  Occasionally, we have a major breakthrough and overcome an issue or behaviour or see confidence and resilience shine with dazzling intensity in one of the kids.  And whenever that happens, there seems to be no apparent rhyme, reason or rational to adequately offer me answers or a formula to how or what we did right by our babies.

In my working life, I will lose my mind with angst and intensity.  I will gnash my teeth, throw up my arms, heave my body and soul through the cosmos of creativity to develop a campaign or idea that I feel absolutely confident is going to change the course of humanity, and the idea ends up being a huge flop and I can’t even get budget sign off to give it wings.  In other instances, I will jot down an idea or two, make a couple of calls and then pull of an epically successful activation or event with far reaching (and reasonably accurate) social and traditional media coverage.

In personal relationships, I can have a solid stint of seven or more years with someone popping in and out of my life and us being able to celebrate our diversity and always pick up where we left of.  I am forgiven for being busy and missing important events because of work, travel and family commitments and we get to make the most of our time together and laugh and cry and carry on with a kind of beautiful and spiritual intensity that makes life worth living.  We EVEN like each others shit on Facebook and make hilarious public quips that will have any onlookers rolling in the aisles.  Then.  I get unfriended and my attempts to call or text are ignored.  (This happens VERY rarely cause most of my friends are AMAZING and patient and feel my many faults are worth hanging in there for the good times for)

So I’m just going to say it.  I often have no fucking clue what is going on.

All I do know is this:

In your heart of hearts and deep in your gut, you know when you are doing something shitty, or forgetting to do something really important.  So, Listen to your heart and your gut and use your brain to make good choices when choices must be made.

Be consistent.  Be kind.  Be authentic.  Be honest.  Take risks and totally take responsibility for the shit that you do.  Good and bad, own it.  Basically… most situations in life can be best handled by following this popular buddha meme:

All the other shit appears to be little more than a crap shoot.

I have zero magic formula for life, because we are all so different and the rules keep on changing all the time it seems.  Truth be told, I am having a bit of trouble shovelling through the shit in the big, creepy, badass barn that is my own journey, so I won’t go telling you how to feel or think or what you should or shouldn’t do.

So I am going to leave it there for tonight and go and do some work now because it is the right thing to do and the baby has just gone to sleep.

It felt fucking fabulous just to get that written down.  Feels even better when I think someone somewhere might read it and feel better for it, so, thank you for reading my disjointed thoughts…  I wish you strength, and Love, and heaps of peace and comfort if you’re in need of it.

XXOO

Today, I shone bright like a diamond.

I was at my sweary, honest, confrontational best (or worst, depending on who you talk to, I suppose).

At one point, I was explaining to someone why I did not like them very much.  Reason being, I had done a lot of work to help them out, and been dismissed and never thanked for any of it.  And that shit pisses me off. For real pisses me off.  Gratitude is important.

I then got to go on a short but effective tirade about the fact we work closely and effectively with a wide range of wonderful people.

Perhaps, I went a bit far, when I said:

“And the thing is, this time last year, I am pretty sure a fair whack of our closest allies probably thought Steve was batshit crazy and I was just a loud bitch with some form of Tourettes because of my impressive potty mouth!”

To which.

My adoring and supportive husband replied:

“But you are a bitch”

Pregnant pause.

“…and you swear more than someone with Tourettes.”

Luckily, I was in a good mood today.  We remain married and I can’t really argue with his assertion.

And we continue to enjoy the absolute shit out of the work we do and the people we are working with.  Even the very few I do not particularly like very much.  And goodness knows there’s precious few people in that camp indeed.

Have great week everyone.

So the original plan (which has not currently come to fruition) was to write a frequent and lighthearted blog about some of the shit I get up to.  And to not have it harken back or be at all related to the other blogs and social media personalities that I maintain…

A place where I can say FUCK and drop the c-bomb if it is actually a worthy situation for such colourful language.

That is how I envisage this blog.

Soooo… maybe I’ll go ahead and start.

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