Happy New Year :)

To my lovely new friends here in Blog Land – I hope you all have a wonderful new year in 2012, that you are happy, healthy, positive, lucky, everything you desire/need happens for you.

I have a deep unshakeable feeling that 2012 is going to be really positive for me and Shalimar – it’s definitely going to start with a new beginning. We move to our new home in just a few days – on Wednesday!

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Even so, my feeling of better things on the horizon is strong.. and comforting.

In 2012 I want to focus on being KIND to myself, and on SELF-CARE.  For too many years – most of my life – I’ve been just horrible to myself. My eating disorder is very much based in self loathing.  Part of the journey to recovery is finding the love, care and RESPECT to really start looking after myself properly, nourishing myself, letting myself THRIVE instead of trying to suffocate myself like a weed.

Even if I AM a weed – Weeds are but plants in the wrong place, aren’t they? And maybe this new home will be the place I’m meant to be in.

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By default, kindness and self-care will mean I can be kinder and more caring towards others too – you cannot give to others what you have not first given to yourself.

I also want to learn how to just BE. To live in the moment. Yesterday is gone – we cannot control it, cannot change it. Tomorrow is out of reach.  I want to live RIGHT NOW as best and fully as I can. And if I can do that, tomorrow will actually be that much better in a flow-on effect.

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Being able to just BE will help, I think, with anxiety, with flashbacks, with all sorts of things. With accepting my body, that I AM, that I don’t ever have to apologise for being who I AM. That it’s okay to be the way I AM and that I don’t have to try and change it and be something else.

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It’s been a hard decade, a hard couple of decades, so to have things start to just be okay and calm and positive will be a dream come true.

Here’s to fresh new positive beginnings for all of us. Happy New Year, my friends! 

What are you doing to see the New Year in? (I’m staying home).

What do you want the New Year to hold for you? Resolutions? Hopes? Dreams? I hope they happen for you xx

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The Versatile Blogger Award!

I’m so chuffed and honored! I’ve been nominated by Nataly for the Versatile Blogger award! I can’t thank you enough, Nataly – it is so lovely to be believed in and to have someone think your blog is interesting and good enough to nominate. I haven’t been blogging for long and not very seriously too, so hopefully this will spur me on to make it better!

Back a while ago, I’m sure that Nicole nominated me for a blogger award – and I wasn’t in a good frame of mind nor really familiar with blogging enough to know what to do – so I’m sorry to say I never accepted it. So this is a huge thank you (belatedly) to Nicole too.

I’m a bit more on the ball now! It’s really quite simple! (silly me )

Here are the rules on how to nominate and get awarded:

1. Thank the award giver and link back to them in your post

2. Share 7 things about yourself

3. Pass this award along to 15 recently discovered blogs you enjoy reading

4. Contact your bloggers to let them know about the award

 

Seven things about me!

1. I used to be a serious dancer – Ballet mainly. I dreamt of  being a ballerina – yes my dreams WERE all pink fairy floss and tutus – but I did come close. The eating disorder robbed me of this when I became too unwell to continue.

2. Shalimar is my life – I love her with all my heart. But she’s not the first cat I’ve had such a strong bond with. My first cat Hotchy, was born when I was 10 and lived for six years – she was bitten by a baby taipan. I was gutted.

3. I am profoundly deaf in both ears, and have been since they found it when I was three years old. The kindergarten teachers realised that I was a good girl when I was able to see their faces, but when I couldn’t, I didn’t respond at all! I was so very fortunate to have a lot of care taken to teach me to speak, read, write, physiotherapy to help my balance – which is where the ballet came from – to help with the balance. If I were not deaf, I would never have had the joy of dancing, and never have the love of books that I have to this day. I speak well, too, people tell me.

4. Oh geeze… more things about me? Despite the eating disorder I LOVE FOOD. I think this is a common myth about people with eating disorders – that they must love food, never be hungry, etc.

5. I have never been overseas, but I dream of exploring the world.

6. I love nature deeply. I think this world is absolutely beautiful.

7. I want so badly to be able to fly. It’s the secret superpower I’d most like to have. Imagine being able to just leap into the air and soar away! Bliss!

 

I don’t know if I have 15 bloggers! But I do have some pretty darn awesome blogs that i’ve discovered.  Some have already been nominated – I hope it is okay to re-nominate them since they are just that wonderful.

Nicole and Gwendolyn – the first ED recovery blog I stumbled on, Nicole is utterly inspiring to me. For the first time, I was able to imagine myself managing the bulimia – modelling my eating on hers.

Nataly - Nataly has a gift for the written word, and I never tire of reading her blog. She nominated me, but I can nominate her back can’t I?

Elizabeth – yet another amazingly inspiring blogger, who is currently beating her bulimia! So courageous.

Greta – Kind, gentle, mother of the Russian Mafia, recovered bulimic – so inspiring.

Keira - A lovely friend who has been through a LOT, a blog full of very helpful writings and inspiration for recovery.

Eliza - She’s so full of spirit and so able to laugh at life and herself – another recovering bulimic. And her dog, Harry-exia!

Emma - thought provoking and often heartbreaking writing  at Does My Bum Look Big In This.

The Hook - Hilarious crack-up reading about life in the service industry – the good, the bad and the ugly.

LT - blogs over on I Was A Foster Kid. Prepare to cry your eyes out.

There are many more, but I’m exhausted already!

Thank you again to Nataly and to all of you for even reading! I’m so lucky and so honored.

Blogging can be awesome hey? We are sharing so much about our lives and our worlds have been opened up so much!  What do you know now that you would not have known before blogging/reading blogs? 

 

A Lovely Surprise!

From overseas, today, arrived a pretty brown envelope. Sealed well, the stamps were my first clue as to who could have sent this all the way to me in Australia..

They aren't quite Puggles... but hey they are close!

Inside I found the most precious, lovely card –  hand made carefully, finished with ribbon, proudly displaying a photograph of my US friends Nicole and Gwendolyn! Nicole blogs about her life as an Ex-Bulimic and is truly inspiring to me and many others.

this is truly the most special, lovely card I've ever been given

Nicole, Thank you SO MUCH! Such a special gift. And you have the neatest handwriting I have seen!

Beautiful handwriting, beautiful stamp!

Such care, handmaking it and sending it all this way. I’m truly feeling blessed. Thank you for keeping the Christmas Spirit alive for me, Nicole. xxx

Are you still finding little magical Christmas reminders, now that it’s over? Are you looking forward to the New Y ear?

Do you like to handmake your cards or buy them? 

Shalimar Guest Posts!

Hello everyone, this is Shalimar. I’ve been hounding (or should that be catting?) Fiona for a while now to let me post on her blog, why should she get all the fun?

As readers would know by now, I am the boss of Fiona’s underpants, so her days revolve around Moi. So for her to not let me get my paw into this enterprise would be missing something special, yes?

I live a very healthy life. Recently I’ve slimmed down a lot – I should have thought to keep a before snap handy. My veterinarian ordered me on a diet of cardboard tasting crap – Obesity Management Chow – that was more expensive than my annual shots!

I realised while looking over Fiona’s shoulder as she read blogs – my food, and maybe even my  lifestyle, is much like that of one of those much-celebrated Healthy Life Bloggers. So here is MY healthy life blog.

Thankfully cost meant that Fiona had to switch me back to real food, which I enjoy so much more. Here is my breakfast!

Friskies' Senior - Chicken Lamb and Vegetable,Whiskas Pilchard and Whiting Loaf, Water

I really love my chow

Friskies chow is Meow!

After breakfast i tend to do a bit of brain stimulating exercise – reading is good. I’m a smart cat, you see.  My favourite titles include all of Kerry Greenwood’s books, Puss in Boots, Catcher in the rye, Cat in the Hat… Oh, here is a link to some of my favorite titles! 

Paper is good for more than just tearing up with my claws!

My day also involves a lot of plain hard work. For example today I helped Fiona with packing to move, and the washing.

I never closed my eyes, I swear I'm helping her pack!

What do you mean, it's not dry yet?

I also engaged in obstacle course training to improve my agility.  Sprints from a complete standstill, leaps, swats, shove-off-the-tops, and other very difficult exercise!

Torso twists and tail lashes. When you do it right, everything in the vicinity goes flying. Best when there are breakables around.

Step ups - even better when there are buttons on the object, like the phone or computer keyboard.

Leaps up and down from a high window! Finished with a good swing off the curtains. Great fun!

Of course it takes a lot of energy to keep an active cat going. Today Fiona bought a few cans of food when she went to the shops.

Lite Cow's Milk - it's really Fiona's but I snitch it all the time, Sardine and Whiting Whiskas, Sardine and Tuna in Jelly and Beef and Salmon Loaf, both Coles Complete Cuisine.

Yum, it’s definitely time for my evening meal!

Gotta give the jaws a work out too!

Ah what a day! Only one thing left for it – my night job is keeping my human safe and warm. VERY safe, and VERY warm…

It’s hard work being gorgeous!

adorable.. and I know it!

It’s a hard life being a pet. What is your pet’s day like?

Dancing with the Homeless – Single Dad Laughing

Dancing with the Homeless.

A lesson on gratitude and not taking anything, even life’s basics, for granted.

I survived Christmas!

Christmas was wonderful – truly one of the best ever. I spent it at a small, riverside park, with a very close friend. Both of us are survivors, so there was no pressure, no  expectations, just the desire to spend time with each other and make the day special.

We had a BBQ lunch – chopped up onion, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, firm tofu, all cooked on the BBQ hotplate with soy and tamari, garlic, chilli, and spread with tahini. We had them  with chicken sausages, and a leafy spinach/carrot/ cherry tomato/spanish onion/mushroom  and fetta salad on the side.

They are yummier than they look. NO we did NOT eat FOOT - though I am an expert at inserting foot into mouth a bit too often.

The miracle here? Two years ago, eating in public, and eating anything and keeping that down – was impossible. Eating a Christmas meal – especially a BBQ – with a friend in the park? Truly a Christmas Miracle!

The park is just beautiful. The company was the best. We just lay around and chilled out, felt the breeze, the sunshine, watched people fish and fall into the river when showing off, stole each other’s phones and updated each other’s facebooks – I now have statuses that say I ate whale, and that I have noodles in my backside eek.. that embarrassing sort of stuff. And we talked.. And talked.. And talked.

It was all in all, the best Christmas I’ve had in a long time. Maybe ever. Christmas is usually fraught and full of bad memories – so it was a breath of fresh air. Literally

I have agonised over showing my face on this blog… lets see if I can show the following without hiding my face…. here goes…

Yes this is me. Ignore me! Look at the PARK!!! Isn't it beautiful!

Well, Christmas is done and dusted for another whole year. I really need this shirt

However, they seem to have forgotten there is still New Year's Eve to live through!

I’m so so so glad to be alive! Haha.

It is a gift, a blessing, to be alive. A very close friend’s whole family were involved in a serious car accident last night, on their drive home from Christmas with their family. Their car was totalled. Out of the blue – you never know what might happen. You never know when this minute might be your last minute – and we can’t afford to take a single moment for granted. It’s so essential to cherish every moment with your loved ones. We might not ever see them again! And then it’s too late.

I am so thankful for the wonderful friends who have made my life worth living. They have shown me that there are good people in life – more good people than not so good. They have shown me that I am actually loveable – something I didn’t used to believe. They have proven to me that sticking it out through the hellish times is WORTH it because life DOES get better at the other side – and that it’s POSSIBLE TO RECOVER – COMPLETELY. Because some of them have, themselves. Been through utter hell, never gave up, lived to tell the tale – not only that, but are REALLY LIVING.

I am just, overwhelmingly, grateful. Thank you God. Thank you Life. Thank you Friends. Thank you Shalimar – for keeping me going and loving me unconditionally.

Now I just need a few months of rest to get over Christmas and all the thinking, fretting, stressing… Oh wait.. I can’t – I have to move in a week and two days!!!!

This is me -

Cannot manage another step..

I hope you all had a much better Christmas than some of you expected – that you all survived (well you did – you are reading this! You survived!! It’s over!!)

I hope you experienced love, thankfulness, peacefulness, magic… I know I did.

In the last week of this year, I’m going to be thinking very hard about how I can make the coming year the best I can. I’m not going to waste another year of my life being sick, being miserable – letting life just pass me by. I’m fighting. I’m going to LIVE in 2012.

Any hopes and dreams for the coming year? Resolutions? Regrets about the time that’s passed? Please share!

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Oh how angelic Shalimar can be, knowing that Santa is on his merry way!

Can you see my halo?

Happy Christmas xxx

Merry Christmas Eve

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house

Shalimar scampered in search of a mouse

Instead of her mousie she leapt onto me

And then from my shoulder, she tackled our tree!

So surrounded by dirt and pine needles and trash,

We wish you the happiest, most peaceful Christmas!

Thankfully Shalimar has not really discovered the fun of destroying the tree yet, despite my little poem.

 Image Source

I know Christmas can be hard for people with mental illnesses – but I hope with all my heart that every one of you has a better Christmas than you thought you would – one filled with happiness, peace, calmness, and sanity! Remember that any expectations you feel are not necessarily warranted – and that putting on a happy face isn’t going to make things better. Try and relax and just enjoy the people you are with, and remember to BREATHE.

Merry Christmas and best wishes to you all. 

 

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

I hate Christmas. Loathe it. It’s always a time of bad memories and sadness and lonelieness.

NOT THIS YEAR!

I have such wonderful friends, and their sharing has meant that Christmas is slowly, year by year, improving. I have plans, and I have visitors.

Also my life is improving, I have a new home to look forward to, and I’m so much healthier than I’ve been for years.

Even the details of my move are coming together – I have a removalist organised, and support on the day, and a moving date… 4th January can’t come soon enough!

I even have a Christmas tree! My first real tree

It's small but it's mine - and it's a real live tree - smells beautiful! In the background are my own artworks.

The tree is coming with us in January, and going into my little patch of dirt. Every year it’s going to be our Christmas tree again – and it’s going to grow with our new lives.

The hard thing – one of my closest friends has relapsed badly with anorexia. She has regained a few kilos but is still less than 30kg, and she’s not short either. Today I had the most wonderful time with her, but have come away scared – I am scared of losing her, and so angry at the eating disorder for doing this to her. Why does this horrible disease have to attack the most beautiful souls?

Please, God. Please help her. Help all of us.

Your lives are all so precious. Please, please, be kind to yourselves and take care! xxx

Just a lovely lovely thing to look forward to.

We have negotiated – moving day is the 4th of January. So i have a bit of breathing space!

Grand Tour Time!!!

Welcome to my new home-to-be:

The path leading to my new home - you are pretending you do not see my HACC case manager - that is why there is a gaping nothing there

The other people who live here really look after the gardens, they are just beautiful, full of flowers and well tended. I think that says a lot about them – likely to be very good neighbours, not drug addicts, drunk people, angry people, etc, like those I currently reside with.

This is the front of my home!

I cannot wait for Shalimar to see this place and realise she is going to LIVE here. This is the sort of view that we are used to -

Now there is a big building here - but this is Shalimar's experience of the world.

Shalimar is seriously going to think she’s died and gone to paradise!

Paradise for a city-bred cat! My backyard area.

I cannot wait til January 4th.

Best Christmas/New Year’s gift EVER.