Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

ALL THE SOAPS
I’m working on the shop website today after realising last night May is almost over.

Where did the time go? I DON’T KNOW BUT SEPTEMBER IS GETTING CLOSER hold me.

Part of getting the website ready is doing bits and pieces each week so that once September is here and the final paperwork is finalised, I don’t have to spend a week adding all the products, their descriptions and details.

This means, product shots!

And because it’s Sunday and I haven’t yet managed a proper breakfast or cup of tea yet (Eve is quite unwell and has gifted Amy and I with the plague), I thought I’d share the photos here first.

You guys like soap photos, right?

Above: Lemonade soap. Sweet and sharp, this fragrance smells exactly like lemonade in summer.

Below: Lemon hand soap – “Potter’s Soap” designed for ceramicists who constantly have their hands in and out of water, and covered with drying clay. Also good for anyone who has issues with soap drying their skin. Scented with a tart lemon smell.

Above: Luxurious Lavender Hand Soap – another “Potter’s Soap”

Below: Hunter’s Night soap. This fragrance is described as “Very sexy masculine scent, with notes of exotic woods, musk, oakmoss and hints of lime and cyclamen ” – I just think it’s delicious. My whole house smells like this one. You can see the discolouration on the edges, over the next fortnight the soap should turn a glossy brown.

Above: Wild Wild West. I probably need to rename this. The fragrance: “Top notes of Tumble Weeds, Basil Leaves, and Tonka Beans; followed by middle notes of Brushed Suede, Earthy Patchouli, and Amber Stone; all sitting on manly base notes of Aged Saddle Leather, Red Cedar, and Full Musk.”

I can’t promise I can smell all those scents, but it smells smoky and sexy, with an undernote of saddles and horses.

Below: Dragon’s Blood.

I held off on buying this fragrance, worried it would be too hippy. However, I can see why it’s such a best seller for people who make soap.

Warm, woody and earthy scent, with notes of amber, vanilla, sandalwood, patchouli & light tones of powdery musks and hints of asian florals to bring out subtle spice undertones.

Above: An unscented soap with beeswax. There is a very faint smell of beeswax and honey in this soap still, but nothing artificial to bother people with sensitive skin.

Below: Spearmint and Eucalyptus.

Originally I thought I’d use these smells to make a scrubby foot soap, but it’s so nice I made regular bath soap with it too.

Edited to add:

If you’re interested in being notified by email when the soap shop is about to launch, you can sign up for my email list right here. HANDY DANDY.
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May 25, 2014
Jamie’s Garden: Am I convinced? I don’t think so.

I received this in the mail today, which is kind of cool, on the surface.

Upsides:

It’s filled with notes, recipes and spots for stickers, perfect for a slightly older child, or a strong reader. I think Amy will like it, but struggle to read it at the moment.

It also came with a terracotta pot which Eve promptly smashed. Toddlers. Don’t trust them. Luckily Kim Foale Ceramics has made me some pots which hold up to toddlers and actual growing things much better than crappy terracotta.

Downsides:

The seeds it came with. Tomato. In May. For Tasmania. Even watercress, or mustard would have been a more sensible choice. Or spring onions. Or parsley. Anything you can grow inside on a window ledge really, which isn’t tomatoes. Especially Grosse Lisse Tomatoes, which hate Tasmania.

Even more downside-y – my kid is allergic to tomatoes. I’m not picking at the company, but yeah, I kind of am. No tomatoes for us. Poor choice.

Also had a stuffed toy and a toy spade, which Eve commandeered immediately.

It’s a promotion for Woolworths, obviously, and while I think I like it better than the animal cards, or whatever the last thing was, I find the notion of providing collectable things for children in order to get kids to bug parents about shopping at Woolies, slightly less than ethical.

It causes people to go insane, and we have enough one-upmanship happening with kids as it is, without adding collectable swappable things to the mix.

Am I convinced?

I don’t think so. I like the theme of healthy eating they’ve got happening, but the execution needs work, especially as Woolworths is more invested in selling junk at low prices than providing healthy affordable options.

Unless of course you want to eat rice and beans, which hey, we might all have to in this current climate.

Now if Woolworths had sent better seeds, or better pots, or actual suggestions on growing a garden, coupled with a promise to drop prices on the food I want to eat, I might be more sympathetic. As it is, it feels like a cheap ploy to pretend to be interested in healthy food while promoting coke, chips and junk as the affordable options.

—

This post is kind of sponsored. I got stuff, and even though I didn’t have to write about it, I had ALL THE FEELS, so I guess I’m still promoting their new campaign and giving it space, even though it didn’t win me over.

May 20, 2014
Poverty isn’t a choice you make

I watched Bill Shorten’s Budget Reply Speech last night, quietly cheering from my couch as he addressed issues which concerned me. Youth Newstart, poverty, the medicare co-payment. I sat there, waiting for him to go in to bat for young disabled Australians.

Only he didn’t.

Sure, he mentioned pensioners multiple times, but unless recipients of the Disability Support Pension (DSP) have suddenly morphed into senior citizens, he wasn’t talking about us.

Yet again, the disabled are relegated to the corners, out of sight out of mind. We don’t count – not in a visceral way. Surely people in wheelchairs can work? After all, they’re sitting down all day anyway.

There is despair in my household today.

The solar panels we installed to hopefully cut our energy costs aren’t helping us out and my power bill arrived. $670 I have to find from somewhere, while also paying off the stupid panels. Multiple phone calls to the solar company complaining have netted me a lot of reassurance about “we’ll have to check your contract and see what we promised we’d deliver” and “we’re looking into it”, but that doesn’t stop my bills arriving, or the money being paid off the panels leaving my bank account.

I can tell you there is a vast difference between what we were promised, and what has been delivered.

I was reading the Griffith Review this morning; a powerful piece about poverty.

It hit home, hard.

Poverty isn’t a choice you make. It’s the result of a series of impossible choices thrust upon you. Food on the table today, or money for a train ticket to a job interview. Getting the kids school uniforms, or buying a work shirt. Petrol for the car or money for power. A prescription, or food.

And I understand it.

The difference between those women and my situation is a fine line. There’s no domestic violence here, and no addiction to hold us hostage. A very fine line. I’m not beholden to market place rent, just interest rates. I don’t have to worry about a landlord kicking us out onto the street.

I am lucky, and how lucky I am. I chose a man who doesn’t beat me. It seems like it should be an easy choice, but look around you. Domestic violence is everywhere, fueled by the hopelessness and despair of poverty and the addictions that take hold when you try to forget how bad your situation is.

Poverty is insidious and it isn’t as simple as asking us to choose not to be poor. It’s more than the ‘just get a job’ rhetoric. Youth uneployment in Tasmania is 20%. You can’t tell me there are enough jobs to go around.

My car is at the mechanic today, having wheel bearings replaced. It’s a necessary thing – there’s no public transport here and we need a car. But it’s also an extra chunk out of the budget I would have preferred to spend on things like groceries and new shoes for the kids.

A fine line between surviving and not.

We will be fine, but many other people will not be.

In September, I’m due to open up my shop to sales. We had planned to launch in November, but we’re moving it up because we can’t afford to wait the extra two months. We’re hopeful our networks will support us, and our business will grow and thrive.

Like I said yesterday, I have options many people do not. I can write articles and pitch to magazines. I can make soap and sell it. I can put my head down and push through until things look brighter.

I can make my work fit around my disability.

I could not make my disability fit around my work.

And that is what is wrong with the politicians right now. They truly believe we can make our disabilities fit around a job. This shows an intrinsic misunderstanding of the nature of disability, which is a complex and nuanced issue. We’re not all in wheelchairs. We’re not all mobility impaired. We’re not all paralysed.

What we are right now though, is hopeless. Filled with despair at what our future might hold.

Tired from fighting it.

That’s what we are.

May 16, 2014
What does $7 buy? Hopelessness, despair and death.

I am disabled.

Every few months I’ll have a run of good days and start to think wistfully about going to University and studying something I’m interested in. Or the disability bashing will get inside my head and I’ll start to question myself. Surely I could work a part time job, right?

Then something will happen. My body will collapse and I’ll spend three days vomiting, only managing to parent my children through the use of heavy duty anti-emetics which will probably cause Parkinsons when I’m 50. Or maybe I’ll dislocate something so badly I’ll end up curled up in a little ball whimpering and unable to move until my husband reduces the dislocation for me, braces my joints up and puts me to bed. Or my blood pressure will bottom out and I’ll puke and pass out at the same time.

It doesn’t last long, my wistful wanting, before I’m faced with the reality of my particular disability.

I can’t drive because I can’t be trusted not to dislocate something badly while driving, or go all wobbly and dizzy. Public transport is non-existent, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, because the simple act of sitting up straight with my feet on the floor causes enough problems to write an entire blog post about.

Disability is a multi-faceted and complex thing, but Joe Hockey isn’t interested in hearing our personal stories of woe. To him, disabled Australians are an untapped workforce. Too long we have languished in our beds, on our couches, collapsed on our floors. Not only do we refuse to work through sheer laziness, sucking at the public teat like our life depends on it, but we also clog up the medical systems.

No worries. He’ll just stop indexing our pensions, make doctor co-payments a thing, charge us for blood tests and xrays and take away money from our hospitals.

Soon enough we won’t be sucking at the public teat, because we’ll be dead.

I’ve spent three days digesting this budget and I can’t see a way forward that doesn’t involve crying. How am I meant to survive if I’m assessed as being able to work eight hours? And I don’t kid myself – I have no cognitive impairments and I can walk for like, 2 minutes, so I’m perfectly capable of working, surely.

In the last three weeks, I’ve left my house once, and this was to take my youngest child to a speech therapy appointment. My husband, my carer, drove us. Then I forced myself to walk around the supermarket buying food so we didn’t starve. I spent the rest of that day in bed, and the one after too. In and out, parenting prone, between doing the work which we hope will support us when the government cuts us adrift to die.

You don’t want to know how much of our budget goes on food which is too expensive and doesn’t last nearly enough meals.

And I’m one of the lucky ones. I can freelance to make ends meet when I need to. I have a fledgling business which should be up and running by the end of the year. I have options I can carry out from my house, from my bed, when I need to.

My friends, my family, my peers, they don’t have this.

If you’re under 35 and disabled, sorry, but your disability isn’t a real thing. It doesn’t count. We’re just couchsitters, lazy, unwilling to commit to hard work.

Isn’t that right Joe? We’re disabled, so we have no right to live, let alone live without fighting a daily financial struggle.

And this is leaving aside entirely the nightmare of the changes to Newstart allowance, of forcing young people to earn or learn in an economy with no jobs and unattainable education systems.

Force the lot of us into work. Minimum wage to fill a gap, killing ourselves in the process. Cut the mental health budget – mental illness isn’t a real thing anyway. Cut the welfare. Cut the hospitals. Charge for doctors.

Joe Hockey is out there, smocking a cigar right now while our world crashes down around our ears.

The flow on effect of these changes is unimaginable. Crime. Hopelessness. Endemic poverty.

How many convicts were sent to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread, Joe? Is that what this is? Are we merely returning to our roots?

I look at this budget and I despair. Stamp all over the poor people. Let our blood fertilise your field of propaganda and lies.

We’re just grist for the mill now. Chew us up and spit us out.

May 15, 2014
The natural evolution of a blog

I’ve been blogging for nearly six years now, starting when my first child was small and sleepless. I’ve watched blogging change, sat here through the rise of the sponsored content, seen the explosion of mummyblogs. I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading blogs, commenting, responding to emails.

I’ve written sponsored posts, attended brand events, excitedly accepted a swag bag full of crap I didn’t need. I’ve laughed and cried over blogging, made friends, made foes, found people I love and people I’d happily punch in the face.

This blog is not the same as it was when I began. It’s not the same as it was when my second child was born, or when my grandmother died of cancer, tearing our family apart, or when my third child was born needing extra attention.

I’ve blogged from hotel rooms, from conferences, from airports. I’ve blogged from hospital wards, from special care, from paediatrics, from chemotherapy wards. I’ve blogged from palliative care and from the waiting rooms of oh so many doctors.

I’ve pissed people off with my honesty. Made them change their views of me. Upset them with my refusal to shut up and be nice.

Six years of my life, documented in snippets, photographs and short stories. Triumphs and failures, excitement and heartbreak.

I haven’t been a mummyblogger in years now. My daughter starting school made me draw back, protecting her from prying eyes. Protecting all of us from prying eyes if I’m being honest. Things got quieter here as time passed. We adjusted to Evelyn’s difficulties and I stopped feeling the need to talk about everything non-stop.

All of this is okay. It’s the natural evolution of blogging. People change, grow up, move along. Six years is a long time in the blogging world which sometimes seems to flit around faster than a dragonfly.

My life is full and suddenly, there isn’t the time for the Internet there once was.

Again, this is okay. I am okay.

—

I spent two hours today melting down beeswax, straining it, and cooling it in sheets for easy slicing. I’ll add it to soaps and lip balms in the next few months.

The house smells like honey now, warm and inviting. There are soaps curing on top of my closet, all through the linen cupboards and in the bottoms of drawers. Some of my books will be going into storage to make way for soap. Bookshelves are handy places for curing soaps.

Life has changed. We’re busy getting this business off the ground, and when all I can think about it soap, and everything I ever do is soap related, it’s hard to keep a humorous parenting blog running.

So it’s fair to say there will be more soap stories here than child stories. Maybe a good thing; soaps can’t complain they’ve been embarassed at school, and if someone calls a soap ugly, no one cries. Except maybe me because they’re my baaaaaybeees.

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Blogs change. People change.

I don’t want the same thing from this blog as I wanted two years ago.

Blogging in Australia has changed. The explosion of blogs has meant the very small tight knit and sometimes stifling community has branched out and gotten bigger. There’s more room to breathe now, although it’s harder to attract traffic when you can’t find the time to comment on the blogs you like.

Things are different, and that’s normal. It’s not a bad thing. To be honest, I got sick of saying the same things over and over about the same topics. Ethics, criticism, blogging. It’s all white noise and people are going to meltdown over things no matter what I say.

This space is changing and I am okay with that.

—

Beeswax.

May 12, 2014