if you are of my past/present/future- please read

I wonder when grace comes in.

To be honest I am not a fan of blogging my inner most feelings and thoughts, especially when they are posted up on facebook for everyone to see. I apologise before hand, if this comes across with some rather, unintentional emotion-alities, as I am trying to remain as factual as possible.

The last year has been hard. And I do not apologise for not 'getting over' the friends I have lost, as a result of my foul actions. It is a lot easier said that done, to put someone in the past, again, it's easier to despise over feeling loss. I don't believe, however, that that is the gracious way to respond.

Last year, when I moved back to Sydney, I did not only lose a relationship with some really incredible people, But I lost my home, and my life. I returned to Sydney with a double whammy of repercussions of my actions. I felt almost exiled from my home, whilst expecting to be welcomed back to another, and then realizing that I had sacrificed all. Not only was I erased from Nowra, I found that I was erased from Sydney. I walked into a home where all my pictures were gone, my friends had all moved on... and so it seems my family did also.

I realized that I had mucked up on two major frontiers. I had self destructed one home, whilst completely ignoring the other.

I will not promise to 'get over' or 'move on' from what was. I regret so intensely, my actions, and what they have caused.  I remain, with a loving stance, to what I had. I still love them. It would be incredibly wrong for me not to. At the same time, though, I also have to work at loving and re-building everything I once thought was a given, from scratch.

Knowing that everyone had 'moved on', or in my opinion, continued to live whilst I was arrogant and pretentious, was difficult at first. I had no 'close ties' with anyone. It has been a challenge, and a large growing curve that I have had to over come, realizing that being included was not a 'given' anymore. I have built friendships back up. I have also accepted the farewells of so many more.

Last year, I learnt that to share with someone openly, is to subject them to turmoil, and emotional drain. To flow ones thoughts, unchecked and without care to another, is far from being gracious. You do not realize how much the other is impacted, until the tables are turned, and you're the one supporting someone.

We have a responsibility, if we love others, to keep ourselves in line. To rebuke ourselves, and to strive to be the best version of ourselves that we possibly can be. It is true, that others should accept us as we are... but, as is so often is the case, we fall short. I admit that I haven fallen short on my responsibilities. I accepted my emotions as fact and governed my life through them, rather then looking at what was best for those around me.

I know that I have done wrong. I admit, that with all I am I wish and yearn for the friendships that I once had.  I do not wish for them, because I 'need' them, rather because I miss them, so very dearly.I wish they would contact me, or write me back. But after waiting for the past year, I have realized that that isn't how life works. I cannot get them to love or want me more than I can rid of the ants that invade my house!

We proclaim grace and love to everyone, but we so often neglect it in our lives. I struggle knowing that I will spend eternity with these people, when they cannot spend a second with me. I have wanted them to be merciful and heed my plea's for reconciliation, but again... not a word. This is what weighs heavy on my heart. That there are those I love, who live with indifference to me. I do not underestimate the pain my actions cause, rather the grace you are willing to share.

I am not the same person as I was. I think if you knew me now, you would come to that conclusion by your own means. But I will not force you to see. I would send this blog as an email to those of my past, present and hopefully my future... but I know that would not be love.

The only thing that I can do, is to make myself be the opposite of who I once was. I am not denying the fact that I have inward struggles; everyone does to some degree. I am saying, that although it is not reciprocal, I will live, or endeavor to live in and with grace.

I do admit, as it is probably apparent as you read this, that my faith and relationship with God are quite strained and have been for this past year. That does not mean I do not believe, or follow and obey. It just means that I am not finding passion in what I once thought what the supremacy of our lives. Faith, however, is not based on passion, but rather on fact.

If you will pray for me this year, this is what I would ask you to pray:

• That I will follow and worship God until the end of my days
• That I will live in and with Grace in all circumstance
• And that God will help me say 'it is well with my soul' in all situations and seasons.  

I still do not understand, how friendships can dissipate into nothing over night, nor do I comprehend the unwillingness to reconcile, or confront issues. To me friendships are more important and significant; they aren't something you throw away.

I know that I can be unworthy of love, as we all can. But that doesn't mean we do not rise above our means, and extend it anyway. I will continue to try and live by this. I will fail, and fall short. But I will try nonetheless.

Last weekend, I threw my twin and myself a 21st birthday. Just like our birth, we were slightly premature in our plans, however due to a very busy December with the wedding of a dear friend and my beautiful Nieces birthday (which so happens to have over taken my own).

Two weeks prior to the event I started nutting down my ideas, and creating the aesthetics for our party. 

It is extremely hard to plan an event that both my twin brother and I enjoy, due to our rather significant difference in personality, taste and even diplomacy. However,  taking into consideration my brothers taste I decided that we would go for a more relaxed gathering, than 'party'. 

My sister and I grabbed our crocheted blankets (which, by the way, we spend TEDIOUS hours creating this winter), our pillows, and spare furniture and headed outdoors. 

For decorations, I grabbed the mix match pottery and utensils that we have accumulated over the years and brought the out to see the sun again. That simple, and even more effective than easy plastic plates and cutlery.

I grabbed a book which I had picked up from an op-shop several years ago, recognizing the author and not realizing that it was actually a book I already possessed... just in Romanian? I bought cheap ribbon, cut triangles out of the confusing pages of gibberish and made some bunting.

I baked some goodies as well as some basic meals, including vegetarian options for the more vegetable inclined people like myself and wallah, a backyard was transformed into a cozy hang out session with back ground music and an endless supply of food and beer.

For planning this whilst also undertaking my full time job which, I might add, required several days of over time (how unfortunate!) I'm quite happy. Throwing a party wasn't very hard at all. 

We tried to aim at a wide range of ages, to include my grandparents to my 11 month on niece. There were seats for the more seaty inclined and rugs for others. We had friends from childhood, school, high school, uni, work, and family there. Everyone mingles, ate and drank and well... It was nice to see everyone together for once. 

This day made me very happy.

Fathers day 2012

Typically, fathers day is one of those… more so dreaded weekends of my year. It is a lovely reminder of what was, what happened, and the choices people have made that will leave many others broken for the rest of their lives. Each year on this day I am reminded that rather than wanting anything to do with me, my father drank at the pub.

But this year holds something very special for my family. This was my nieces first fathers day, and boy did she make an impression. These cute little photos are a glimpse of what was once dreadful and hard, to something of joy and pleasantness. A very happy fathers day to newest and perhaps only dad in my family Benny. I hope you had a lovely day.

 My little Soph made her first artworks out of edible paint (incase she got curious and decided to eat it)

She may have also painted herself along the way.

 She managed to paint more of the bath than the actual paper so there are more so prints of artworks made on the bath floor

 Up nice and early, mumma n Soph hung up a happy fathers day surprise for Benny when he got up

 She's showing of the card

Benny, I thank you for being such an amazing Father to my niece and Husband to my sister! Thanks for passionately wanting a role within your daughters life and ensuring that you both have a relationship. Thank you for having play dates with Soph, allowing Zizi to have some alone time, and thank you for leaving your work at work, and coming home to give your family all your love and attention!

I'm starting a new project.
Yes I know that I do start a lot of projects, but hey we have to entertain and occupy the restless soul.

This project is titled, 'oh, the people you will see'.
The basics behind this project is that as much as I can, I am going to be drawing/documenting different types of people that I see in my day to day life. I find it quite bizarre the amount of people that we come into contact with every single day, yet pass them off as mere extras as if we were the star of the Truman Show. But no, thats not quite right. For the amount of people that we do see everyday, there are thousands if not millions of stories that have created their entire being. Occasionally I find my self, and if you are slightly put off by this I do not blame you, imagining their (as in the random strangers I meet) life stories.

Bill Frank Smith over there was born in to a low class family which was struggling financially because his father was a jobless alcoholic. He, though, in spite of his father, strove to make something of himself so that he could defy the stereotypes of our society and our class bondage, and thus be able to adequately provide for his family as his father could not. Bill is now a lawyer who is so successful that he now does pro-bono for the lower class of society. 

or

Jill Elizabeth White's cat died today. She was awfully fond of that cat, so she isn't doing too well.

I hate the fact that I can go through a whole day, being completely submerged in myself that I fail to even notice those around me. The way they dress, their hair, their stance, their stride- everything speaks of a life and story un told.

I want to draw as many people as I can. People who will one day amount to nothing more than the people that they are.

Everything will be cartoon style, though I do not make any promises of grand works as I am but a mere human. But I will carry around my little book and document  different aspects of strangers. Then one day when I have some cats of my own I will look through my collection and be glad that I have been blessed to see so many different types of people.

If you want to be part of this project feel free to let me know and I'll see if I can draw you up :)

This is in no way intended to be stalker-ish in any way, shape or form. Rather it is a unique form of documentation where ones privacy is are maintained.

I have finally finished my little blanket. Countless episodes of numerous tv shows and many a night of being rugged up and watching movies have contributed to the production of this blanket. From the lounge room of Zoe's house in Robbertson, to my sisters houses both in Lithgow and Wellarawang, to my cold and icy home in Sydney, these squares have come. This is the first blanket I have ever crocheted in my life.
Now finally after a long night's episode of waking and sleeping with a drying baby, to an extremely early morning followed by a complete house clean up/ rearrangement I am finally sitting down and drinking a well deserved mocha. Let's hope I can make it through tonight wide-eyed and alert.

Being A Twin

A lot of people ask me when they find out that I am a twin firstly, are we identical and secondly do I like it? I guess for me it has always been a given, I have a twin, there's nothing weird or different about that. But as the years have progressed it has become so much more apparent the uniqueness of our bond.
We have spent nearly every single important moment in our lives together. I am so intimately bound to him that I cannot picture life with out having a twin. It is different for us though, being different genders and all. We somehow manage to complement each other, where I am loud he is fairly reserved, I'm often irrational whereas he is the voice of reason, I fluctuate between moods at a rapid pace whereas he tends to radiate on a steady balance; I make him step out of his comfort zone whereas he is my voice of reason and steady hand telling me when I need to back down.
Up until only a few years ago we very rarely 'got along'. We were in the same year at school, and me being super competitive, managed to shine whilst I pushed him into the shadows. I was always aggressive in our arguments often using my wit (yes believe it or not I do have some) to out smart him. We didn't get along with each others social groups, in fact some people only came to realize that we were even related when we were in year 12. I saw him as someone who was dorky and annoying and perhaps occasionally weak whereas he perceived me as being bitchy, loud, obnoxious and completely self obsessed.

It has only been in these past few years that we have actually started to appreciate each other. I mean yeah we were in the same classes all the way through schooling, and we shared a birthday, we even had a hole on the exact same tooth in the exact same place, but we never clicked until life got harder.
We have, not a disability, but an exposure and a genetic make up that is at risk of depression. We have both been hit with it at different stages yet somehow this mental state, rather than pushing us away from each other even more, has drawn us closer together than ever before.
There was a very hard time a few years back where I gave all I could to see my brother be okay to the extent that it broke me; that was the first time he ever cradled me in his arms and promised to protect me, and promised that he would change. And from that moment on things did change. He progressively fought and was able to reach a sustainable mental level where he would share with me his mental state. We walked through that together for a while. Then we both got jobs and I moved away.
I would not say that my mental state is inextricably tied to his, for it isn't, but if my twin isn't doing to well than 99% of the time neither am I. A few months into working at our new jobs my brother found out he was being let go. This broke my heart, however I had to remain the strong foundation to my twin who now wasn't sure what to do with life at all.
Time passed and my state progressively worsened, however I didn't let that on to anyone within my family. It reached the stage at the beginning of this year where I was no longer the person I once was; I could hardly function as a person at all. After a series of events I landed myself jobless, homeless, I lost my closest friends, and was hysterical. But there was my twin.
Not many... actually I could count on one hand the amount of people who know this... but during this time I cried out in pain and my twin brother held me. He held me so tight it would cut of my circulation. He didn't leave. Sometimes I cried for a few hours but he sat there holding me whilst I said some really unintelligible things (in retrospect some of them are quite hilarious!). He didn't let go even though he could have been doing a thousand other things like not supporting and holding down a very emotional girl.

My twin is my best friend. Yeah we are completely different, yet we have the same humor and are even becoming more and more a like. Now days we just hang out. He knows how to read me like a book as I do him. We support each other not only as siblings, but as people who know each other more than anyone else.
Being a twin has it's ups and downs, don't get me wrong. But I am so immensely blessed to have my twin!
People always wonder what its like in our home. Well to be honest with you... it's pretty much like hanging out with your friends. We don't ignore each other, actually we do our own thing and even include each other in it. We joke around, often at our mothers expense (sorry bout that) and we go for walks or go get coffee.

And finally for anyone who still may be confused as to whether we are identical I have one thing to say to you...  He's a guy, I'm a girl... I do not have a penis. (that should adequately answer your question)

Today's creation. At the beginning of this year my friend's mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. After the recent sudden loss of her father my friend now was confronted with another challenging trial. Her mum has just finished the most intense therapy's of her treatment and is still feeling pretty rotten from it's side affects. So I decided that I would do something for them. I'm not terribly gifted and financially apt at the moment, however, I can use the gifts that I do possess to encourage those in trial and need. So I bought four double ended knitting needles, some yarn and got going on a beanie for my friends mum for winter. A few centerlink calls and a few Gilmore Girl episodes later and the beanie was done. It's not that hard to do something for others! I would encourage you to look at the gifts you do possess rather than dwell on those that you do not, and do something positive with them. Cook, sew, write, knit, crochet, clean- whatever it may be… Even the smallest thing can encourage someone who is in such a horrible situation and give them joy and hope. So what are you waiting for? Go do something for someone else for a change! even if you don't gain from it, it far more worth it than just looking out for yourself!