Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

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.

—

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
Lavender soap, swirled

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve already seen these, but I had to share twice because I was so pleased.

Lavender scented swirled purple soap. I’m really happy with how this one looks and feels. The mix thickened up faster than I expected and I wasn’t sure I was going to get any decent swirl, let alone anything pretty.

And this one smells like lemon meringue pie. If I’d been more organised, I would have done yellow and white here, but I was warned the fragrance would darken the soap, so I didn’t bother. I’d prefer a white soap which fades to a warm tan, rather than a pretty coloured soap which loses its colours to mud later.

While I’ve got you here too, we got to watch the fog form as dusk hit last night. It was pretty.

May 11, 2014
The power of the word “Natural”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about marketing and branding lately, about the power words hold over our purchases, about how we make decisions to buy things.

Of course I have an ulterior motive when I think about marketing; I want you to buy my soaps.

“Natural” is a word I see bandied around a lot when you’re looking at soap to buy.

Natural fragrances, natural colours, natural oils, natural everything.

It’s a big thing to claim your product is natural. Natural sells.

But I’m not using natural fragrances, so I can’t claim my soaps are “all natural”.

I’m okay with this, for a number of reasons.

On one hand, using fragrance loses me the natural label.

On the other hand, fragrance oils are rigorously tested, easy to blend, cheaper than essential oils, offer a wide variety of smells, are (mostly) easy to work with, and have more staying power than essential oils.

It’s good to note here, essential oils can be just as sensitising as fragrance oils. Cinnamon oil can cause skin irritation. Wintergreen also causes irritation. Sage oil is unsafe for pregnant women. Tarragon oil is suspected to be carcinogenic.

My point is, even natural things can be dangerous at high quantities.

I love some essential oils. Rose geranium smells gorgeous and sticks in soap. Peppermint is uplifting and gorgeous. Lavender smells great.

But I’m not averse to using synthetic fragrance in my soap to get the smells I love.

Especially as soap isn’t technically “natural”.

Soap is, in and of itself, a chemical.

To sell soap I have to register with NICNAS as a chemical manufacturer. If I buy soap making ingredients outside of Australia – including fragrances, essential oils, colourings – these need to be noted in my NICNAS registration under “chemical importation”.

There are laws and regulations that as a soap maker I have to follow.

Even more than this, it’s so important to follow the regulations so no one gets hurt.

Ingredient labelling laws are there for a reason. I’ve already had people approach me and ask what my ingredients are.

You know what I did? I told them.

It’s not a giant secret the things I put into my soap and I am required BY LAW, to have the details of my ingredients available at every point of sale. This means on my website when I finally begin selling, and in person at markets.

This doesn’t mean some wavey hands in the air declaration that nothing is chemical and everything will be fine.

No. It means every single ingredient, listed by volume.

It means being open and honest about ingredients, additives and colourings.

But it’s just soap you say.

And of course it is. But the process of making soap utilises a chemical reaction to turn one thing (oils) into soap using a catalyst (sodium hydroxide). It’s a chemical process through and through, so I’m not quite sure how any soap can be called natural.

The great thing about soap making is the chemical process. It’s so much fun to play at being a chemist in my kitchen. I combine some ingredients and BAM, exothermic reaction, saponification, SOAP.

It’s fantastic.

Even better though is knowing that while I use caustic soda to make soap, none remains in the final product. Soap isn’t a caustic product, otherwise no one would use it, except as a bizarre form of shower torture.

Side note: Did you know Dove bars aren’t soap?

Instead they’re something called syndet, which is a synthetic detergent. They have a lower ph than handmade soap.

Colloquially we call it soap. It’s a white bar, we take it into the shower, it gives bubbles and we get clean. It’s soap, right?

No.

Next time you’re in the supermarket, read the ingredients on a bar of Dove soap. Tell me how natural they sound.

A good syndet bar can feel amazing and be amazing on your skin, but it’s a completely different product to the one I’m selling.

So what’s the problem?

There isn’t one, really.

A good bar of handmade soap is a joy to use. Superfatting (the process of adding more oil than is needed, so some is left behind as free oil in the soap bar) can provide a good deal of moisturising properties. I find home-made soap slicks over my skin better, feels nicer and doesn’t leave me dry and itchy.

Provided you don’t have any sensitivities to fragrances, the small percentage of fragrance oil I use to give the beautiful smells shouldn’t cause any problems on your skin. And if you are sensitive (and many people are), I will have a range of unscented soaps to go along with the pretty smells.

Of course, we’re not in business yet and won’t be for a while – NICNAS registration is required in September of every year and I’m loathe to register three months before I need to pay my dues again – so a lot of this is a moot point.

But I promised when I began this journey that I would be open and honest about my processes and my ingredients, and so I am.

Soap making is a chemical process and I have a duty to be honest about that. I have a duty to my friends, family and fans to be completely honest about all my ingredients and about everything I am doing.

Soap making isn’t some great secret and I’m not going to lose out by being honest about the process.

It is a lot of fun though, and gratifying to see my hard work turning into a plethora of products to sell eventually.

April 27, 2014