20

Twenty years ago today MrQ and I took a leap of faith and moved in together.

We had not much more than each other and the kids but were blissfully happy…

                  and SO YOUNG!!!!!!

I was thinner, he had more hair, God we were spunks!!!

20 years on, we are still happy, everyday life wears the edges off the bliss, but life is like that.  How boring would it be if there were no ups and downs, no challenges to work through together?

Life is more comfortable now, settled.  I wouldn’t change a thing.

Love you more than ever babe.  xxx

It’s wedding season...

The news is full of tales of glamorous weddings, both royal and celebrity. Every week the local paper is filled with engagement and wedding notices, pictures of happy couples dressed to the nines.

A wedding is a beautiful thing, not so much about the groom, let be honest, but a day of hope and love and a beautiful, blushing bride. A nice frock, generally average food, a pretty cake. Boring speeches and some dodgy rellies. Reality is suspended amongst a tidal wave of tulle, almonds and baby’s breath. Then the honeymoon, often somewhere in the sun with too much food and booze...

Then what? Straight back to life as it was before for most people, jobs, bills, housework...

So much time, money and effort goes into a wedding but what about afterwards?

A marriage takes work. It doesn’t matter how much you love each other, there has to be effort put in. I’m not talking about flash dinners or sexy underwear; I mean the day to day slog to keep things on track. Learning the art of compromise, to share, to trust one another, to have common goals, attitudes and ethics. You do not need to be clones, but you have to work together for the common good...your family, whether there are 2 of you or 10.

These days you don’t have to take the step to actually marry a person to commit, but it seems that so many people rush to the alter knowing that there is an easy out if things don’t go well. It is nothing for “celebrities” to jump from one marriage to another, with seemingly no break between relationships, now regular people are at it too.

We live in a country where marriage and divorce are easy, about half of our marriages end in it, but there are still members of our society who are not legally entitled to marry, despite the love and genuine sense of commitment that they have towards their partner.

The “Church” and the government will tell you that gay marriage is a threat, but surely if a couple, whoever they are, enter a marriage with a genuine love and a commitment to make it last forever then it how can it be wrong?

The lack of understanding by many as to what marriage actually means, as opposed to a wedding – which a lot of people don’t seem to look beyond - the lack of commitment when things get tough and an attitude that divorce is easy and monogamy old fashioned is far more damaging to the “sanctity of marriage”.

I think it should be harder to actually get married, some kind of counselling, personality testing, a “licensing” exam...something to slow people on their headlong rush to a “wedding”, to have a more considered approach to the marriage that comes afterwards...

But that’s just me, what do you think?

Here we go again...

As a young girl I eagerly anticipated the day that Lady Di married Prince Charles.  It was every little girl’s fantasy, the dress, the flowers, the horses...and the prince who would love and care for you always. The day didn’t disappoint...unlike the marriage.

Looking at the pictures of Diana that day you can see a young girl we all so desperately wanted to be, blissfully happy and in love...

I am sure Kate will be a beautiful bride, and the day as near perfect as they can make it...but the fantasy beyond the big day no longer exists...hopefully William makes for a better husband than his father.

So I will raise a glass to the newlyweds, and probably shed a tear or two...but it just isn’t the same.

And that’s sad...

A bastard of a thing...

...Rheumatoid arthritis that is.

MrQ was diagnosed with this disease in his early 30’s.

Life was good, our son was a few months old, MrQ didn’t mind his job and I was a SAHM.

Then one day MrQ did the mowing with our son in a back-pack carrier thing.  A few hours afterwards he could barely move his neck, he was in agony. 

Over the next few weeks he started to grow more and more tired, bone shattering, go to bed at 7.30pm and sleep 12 hours every night kind of tired.  He constantly had a temperature, was weak and ached all over.

The doctor’s couldn’t find what was wrong...we genuinely thought it was the “Big C”, used to cry ourselves to sleep at night...bad times.

He couldn’t do much for himself, was in agony and sleeping constantly. Depression had set in so he was not a joy to be around I can tell you.  I went from having it all to having to do it all. My active, sporty, happy go lucky husband became a shadow of his former self...it almost finished us.

Eventually they diagnosed RA.  We were surprised. Wasn’t arthritis something old people get, giving them another reason to whinge and ugly, bent fingers...it didn’t make you so ill you thought you were dying? No there are two types.  Osteo is a bugger but it isn’t in the same league as RA.

Do you know how hard it is to find a specialist who gives a damn, who seems to know what they are doing...bloody hard.  The drugs available to sufferers of this disease are brutal, and often ineffective.  The side effects can almost be worse than the disease itself.  Then there are the things they don’t tell you about, the painful cysts, the loss of eye-sight, the frozen joints, and the likelihood of osteoporosis...

Eventually we found medication that worked, it is horrible and necessitates frequent liver function tests but it holds most of the symptoms at bay.  They advised that it is usually effective for 10 or so years, it has now been 17 and things are Ok at the moment.  Problem is after this medication there isn’t much left, either drugs that destroy your heart or drugs used in chemo that destroy everything else.

Every week it seems the current affairs shows talk of miracle cures for Arthritis, don’t be fooled, it is nearly always Osteoarthritis.  The fact is, it is not in the drug company’s interests to find an effective treatment or even cure for this horrible disease, they make billions of dollars a years by selling the treatments they have used for many years, why would they bother with a cure? There are never new wonder drugs for RA.

We manage, life is good again.  The disease is there but no longer has a stranglehold on our lives...for now.

UPDATE: After writing this post I came across this article in the newspaper.  I guess for some the benefits may outweigh the risks!  If they can work out the kinks maybe this is a positive sign.

Driving me crazy...

I love my husband, I truly do.  But there are times when he drives me up the wall.

Give us an example I hear you say.  

OK, here are my top 5 :

R  He is very  inflexible.  Things cannot be sprung on him, they have to be discussed ahead of time (like weeks ahead) so that he can "prepare"

R  He cannot just buy something or go somewhere, OH NO, he has to research it to death first, lots and lots of google and whirlpool searches, website comparisons and store visits.

R  He is quite handy at fixing stuff, but the fuss and bother involved in getting something done is simply not worth any savings you may make.

R  He would happily live in our local Bunnings store, looking longingly at dodads and whatsits, I will go for a specific purpose, in and out, I don't want to spend the day there.  Same for electronic shops.

R  He tries to tell me what to do.  This makes me crazy, I don't listen of course but nothing shits me more than when he says "I told you to..."

  

Now I'm not saying I'm perfect, but this isn't about me and luckily he doesn't read my blog....

What does your man do that makes you nuts?