Bliss and Mayhem

       Ever since I can remember I have always been quite a vivid dreamer. Even as a child my dreams would be so real and I would even sleep talk in different languages. Places that I had never been to, and words that sounded so foreign, but to me, in my sleep talk, they came out so easily. As I got older – the dreams remained but instead of nice dreams, most of them were apocalyptic style. So graphic and scary that I would wake in a pool of my own sweat with it taking a good few minutes to realise that I was back in reality and it was just a dream. And, I always felt SO tired. I would complain about the tiredness all the time where even my family would say, “Come on Cheryl, stop saying you’re tired all the time”. That restful sleep had been eluding me for years. Big dreams. Life or death dreams. Shit dreams. Nightmares really. Last year I went to see a homeopathy therapist, out of curiosity mainly to see what I could do about my sleep, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed 99% of t

  This is NOT a sponsored post Just a feel good share, about a way that you could change the world.       Is the world getting more fucked up? Or is it that because we can hear about it straight away that we are more aware of how fucked up it has always been? I don’t know. It’s like the chicken and the egg conundrum… I try not to think about it too much, because when I do, it hurts, I get really sad and angry, and it makes me feel so little and insignificant in the scheme of the world. How can one little person like me in Melbourne, Australia make any change? And while I’m strolling through my Instagram feed or pinning inspirational “go get em” quotes on Pinterest – in my ducted heated home sipping on a glass of wine, there are people out there, right now, doing it so hard. Like really struggling with life, with money, with making ends meet, with supporting their family, with wondering whether tomorrow is going to happen. You know, survival. And I sip on wine, arse. I wante

     My mantra is that I am the ever working progress and the older I get the more I realise that life is short and to make the most of all there is. I am a sponge and love to soak in new things, new ideals, outlooks and forms of self- improvement. My strike rate record for committing to extra-curricular things is quite low. The idea of a hobby is always so tantalizing but in practice my attention span for it mostly lasts a couple of months and then I give up. I have had countless gym memberships, yoga groups, online courses and the like, where it seems like a good idea at the time, to only close the door on those “me time” things due to time constraints, working full-time and basically being a mum with not enough hours in the day. So over a year ago now, I got thinking about “what can I do for me?” and the first thing that popped into my head was to start a blog. “But what on earth would I write about?” “Would anyone actually read it?” The immediate reaction was doubt. In mys

  The wonderful staff at  Hidden Garden Villas   I’m now into the full swing of being back home and Melbourne is putting on a show of its full force of the winter chill! I wouldn’t call myself a seasoned traveller as having kids young buried that travel bug, but I have visited my favourite place to go to, Bali, now many times. We usually travel just the two of us – beg the grandparents or my sister to watch the kids and get some r&r together, because, please, for the love of God you need it sometimes. And in my head, this trip was all organised. I’d booked everything months in advance. I had saved and saved every week for this trip, the Virgo in me had it all worked out, what things to bring with us, what we were going to get up to and see – I was prepared! I also anticipated daily massages, twice a day {its my thing}, like we always get when we go there. {I had 4 massages in total – 16 less then what I would have done kid free!} {they are between $4-$6 for an hours massage

  So our first family trip is coming close to an end and tomorrow night we will be enroute back to Melbourne. The time has flown, and it always does when you are on holiday. The weeks when you work drag, the days coming up to your trip seem like they click over so slowly but the actual days when you are away, go by in an instant. I’m currently sitting on a day bed in our villa overlooking our pool. Jack is fast asleep having a nap (first nap in about a week!) while Steve is off with Molly getting some more ink. (Steve, not Molly!)Ethan’s having the rest of the afternoon, with his auntie, uncle and cousins at Waterbom Park. I’ve just ordered some Mie Goreng. I love Mie Goreng! This hasn’t been a full on trip full of day tours and running around like a headless chooks. We’ve given ourselves a bit of grace – 3 kids in tow and a toddler that is high maintenance! Yes, possibly like his mother! We’ve experienced awesome food, beautiful people. Re-uniting with friends again. Genuine co

   See this guy here?     I made him. He is a part of my being. He has Autism. And he has challenges that the average you and I who do not – may not every fully understand. He didn’t say “mum” till he was nearly 4. He screamed for up to 8 hours a day, bashing his head against walls. He hated being touched. Hated his mother holding him. It was a survival relationship for him. I was the person that kept him warm, fed him and bathed him. I wasn’t his mother. He didn’t know what mother was. I was 20 years old. And my heart was breaking. In those early years, when things were always so desperate, always so isolating, always so unknown, it was impossible to see anything in the future. I couldn’t imagine Ethan talking, forming friendships, reading, being independent. Because when you are living it, day in, day out – it’s hard. Fucking hard. And foresight for me, was impossible. Fast forward 10 years or so. My guy, Ethan, this term at his special school was made school captain.

 The last fortnight has really knocked me for six. On top of a freezing start to the Melbourne winter here, I am just starting to feel human again from what I have self-diagnosed as a nasty virus. With the start of head cold symptoms to excruciating pain all over the upper half of my body that I have never experienced before in my life, with only getting an hours sleep at night for a week {if I was lucky!} because of the pain, to the point that if someone rocked up to my house with any drug of choice, I would have kissed their feet at the front door ! Just to stop the pain . I seriously would have. That’s how bad if felt. It’s been awhile since I’ve felt like that and the reason it rocked me about so much was the depression that hit me with it. Feeling useless and so unwell, sent me into a bit of an internal downward tunnel where I didn’t care whether I ate, bathed, communicated… nothing, and my usual optimistic self was non-existent.  Gone. Zip. Nudda. And it’s been a while sin