a letter to the boogie man

Dear boogie man that is hanging in my peripheral vision, I have no idea where you have come from, why you are here right now and why you are giving me grief when I am doing awesome. 

The flashes of the boogie man are back. He is there in my nightmares, and sadly waking me up. Not only is he grabbing me there, he is also hanging around when I am riding on my bike, sitting here on the computer, and yesterday he sat right in that dark spot of your eye when you blink. He is even hanging around in the daylight too.

I would give anything to see my mum in dreams, my mum in my peripheral vision, and have her sitting on the couch telling me to cycle faster. But no, I have to have that sick prick hanging around when he is not wanted. 

Every now and then, I will write posts about my past, about what I deal with now, and how I am coping. I think it is important to share what it is like to be over 20 years on since my last sexual assault from my father. Until laws and the way we talk about child sexual assault change, I won't stop sharing what it is like to be a survivor. Don't get me wrong, it is not all nightmares, and flashbacks of the child within being violated. It is also me being able to reflect on how strong I am, how much I have been able to achieve, and what an awesome life I will give to my children, and the life lessons I can teach them with my personal success to survive.

Because ultimately, I want to change the world, and in order to do that, you need to share your awesome side. No one wants to hear bad things. I guess that is why I will take my story around the world with my achievements to run, to cycle and to swim. However I do it in the near future, will be the reflection of the winning fight to survive from the child within. Sometimes you will hear the heartache, but the next day you might see a post where I am living my life, just the way you are too. 

Thank you for listening. Everyone has a superhero outfit, or everyone needs to believe they have one. 

the beautiful blue mountains

There is not much to say about the mountains without making you all feel quite jealous. It is one very beautiful place to spend a weekend. Here are some images that captured our weekend.

The best thing would have to be the bush walk together with my littles, with the ride back up on the rail. It was like a rollercoaster ride! Loved it. We were lucky to have the first two rows. Keely was in the front, with Taj next to myself and my lover. Taj had such a thrill of a ride, he ended up with sweaty palms!

I cannot wait to go away again....it is as soon as next week we are hopping on a plane, and Keely is coming too. Her first overseas trip!

smiling right back with invisalign

The promise of more blog posts, and I don't even know what to post first! I will share the images of the weekend in the mountains tomorrow I hope. For now, I want to share my huge smile. 

It has been a long process with Invisalign. Back in 2012 I wrote a blog post about why I wanted to pay for a new smile. Damn bulimia had me when I was younger, and I have sadly suffered on and off throughout adulthood from the result of being sexually assaulted. I can only wish I punished myself in another way. However I guess I am able to fix the damage he had done to my smile and my confidence. The confidence may be ongoing, however soon the effects of bulimia will soon be behind me.

Over 2 years on, and I am still wearing plastic over my teeth. Although, I am not complaining at all, and wouldn't do it any other way. I paid to have the smile I have always dreamed of, and it is so close to being finished. {WOO HOO}! The top is finished, {again, as I had to have a refinement done due to the bottom not moving properly}, and the bottom now has about 10 weeks to go. 

The next process will be replacing my two crowns in the front, bleaching my teeth, so you need to wear sunglasses to talk to me, and then BOOM, you will see a lot more toothy pegs from this chick. I have to say it is a pretty awesome gift for me to give to my children. They may be my teeth, my straight smile, however I have noticed my daughter smiling with a mouthful of teeth beaming right back at me. I am grateful that my gift to myself will be a gift to those around me. 

You can't help but smile too when someone smiles at you.

no rule books

My little people are growing up pretty fast. Probably at the same rate as your little people are. {That is of course if you have children}. Sometimes you blink and you see a glimpse of a teenager within your 9 year old daughter. That is when I am pretty quick to shut my eyes, and bring back my 9 year old girl. It is exciting watching them grow, and learning about themselves more, and us learning about them too.

Lately my daughter and son have been splitting some of their time between myself and their dad, out of their normal routine. I am not sure what you do in these circumstances, there are no rule books, and my gut tells me to go with the flow, and not make a big deal out of it. 

Yesterday Taj wanted to stay with his dad's partner and later see his dad. It was to her face he asked, and straight to mine. Inside I was screaming, 'no, why am I not cool enough to hang out with.' On the outside, and the rationale me, was thinking, that is pretty nice that my son feels comfortable enough around her to spend time alone and be with her on their own,(and with his half baby sister too). I think that is awesome he cares about her, and she cares for him.

I knew the time would come when they would start choosing whom they wanted to be with more. I was just expecting it when they were in their teens. 

All of this aside, the bonus was I got to have a quality one on one day with Keely. It was pretty special and something I wanted to do again before the holidays were over. She has also been wanting me a bit more, so this was a great for both of us that her brother decided to hangout at their dad's house.

Divorced families can be tough, although sometimes I think they are tougher if you resist the flow. I know there are boundaries, and we need to watch that it doesn't become a regular thing if Taj or Keely believe they can get 'more' out of either parent. It is a balancing act we will all work out together.

We are off to the mountains tomorrow! A photo shoot, and some down time for this little pinwheel family before the school chaos begins again. Oh how I would love another week of holidays.

fresh vegetables and herbs by our green thumbs

The green thumbs are out in force as we start to create our vegetable garden. It is only the beginning, and already we have some good looking basil, and the start of some tomatoes. I truly hope we are picking our own food, and not succumb to possum eaters. 

Not only did we get into the pots and egg cartons, the littles played schools in their newly designed room. Nothing spectacular in design, the room just has the addition of a new desk for Keely and Taj to do their homework on. We also put the bookshelf upright to help create some more space in their room, and packed a lot of their toys into spaces in the cupboard. 

Next we will be setting up the desk to make a space that they both feel comfortable to work from.  For now they have it overrun by lego men with their trucks and spaceships. 

We are loving school holidays and planning a trip to the mountains this weekend before the end of the holidays are upon us. I am loving this time with my little people and I have no doubt I will find the silence during the days a little too much when they go back to school. The mountains will be full of bush walks, a hopeful photo shoot for some of the new winter threads about to hit the little pinwheel website, and of course some downtime enjoying the country air. 

accepting that I am good enough to blog again!

With a cup of peppermint tea at my desk, and two children happily playing lego in their room, I have a few minutes to try and do a blog post. It has been a tough choice to blog or not to blog, one that ended up being the choice of a couple of other people over the course of the last week. Two separate moments where I was asked if I still write my blog. It was something I was considering doing more of this year and I guess sometimes you just need to go with your thoughts, good or bad, and roll with it. Writing is a great source of relief and pleasure for me. Plus it seems to be something others like to read. Even if it is just two people; it has helped them.

So here we are again; blogging.

Maybe I should start by giving a quick recap of what has been happening around here. Firstly, I did clean out my cupboard, and it felt awesome. I don't seem to get changed as much as I used to. However I am starting to try and accept that I am me, and I do a lot to look after myself. I am just maturing. {Such a great word to use once you get closer to 40}! It is also nice to go out and purchase a few new staples for your wardrobe. 

For New Years I made a resolution with my girlfriend, Karen. We always do them. I have used this one before, however I am needing to roll with it again for this year. It is, acceptance. The way I look at the acceptance for the year ahead, is broken down into my past. I don't like to say the past shapes the person I am, although, it truly does. I have my eyes wide open to the way I react to certain things, and I am trying hard to not be so hard on myself; accepting that some of my reactions are a reflection of my past. Yes maybe a little too much for a first blog post back in, and one that might be hard to explain properly in one go. I will do my best!

Am I good enough? That is a question I ask myself quite a bit. I question myself instantly in a lot of everyday conversations. I need to work on why I would be good enough, as apposed to the negative questioning. Accepting that I may react with the negative straight away as a protection mechanism, and working through situations where I have pulled myself apart, and allowing myself to remember the good person I am.

Yes it is all a lot of pulling my negative mind back into gear, and working on the positive energy I pump out for everyday life, and put some of it back into my inner self. It is like I rip layers of myself apart from the inside, not slowly peeling them like onion skin. Once in a moment of despair I am lost in being that little girl and it is incredibly hard to get out of her and back into my adult skin. It may sound weird, but the only place I can do that, if at home, is by laying in my children's room. It is something that  grounds me, and allows me to remember that I have a pretty huge purpose. If I am not at home, thankfully I am usually with others, and mostly my lover. He is great at being rationale, and helping me switch the head around enough to come back to being the adult me.

I have been pretty good. I have had a couple of tough days, but I am now getting better at analysing a situation with a bit more positive energy on the inside. It has been a good few months where I have felt safer. It is only in the last week or so that the nightmares are coming back. I have no idea why they are returning, especially when I feel like I am in a good place. The light is not on at night time, I still need to have my door closed, (I accept that will always be my thing), and I am not lying awake for hours with my eyes pinned open waiting for the boogie man.

Life of a survivor is probably no different to life of someone that has never been abused. We all have our things we need to deal with. This is mine, and I hope by blogging more, eventually writing a book, giving back to the community in awareness, and just being me will allow more to have a voice and help change the world..... yes I know huge, but I believe it can be done, and it will be done. May not be in my lifetime, but it will be in someone else's lifetime.

Welcome back to the Little Pinwheel blog... a life behind the online business, a life of a survivor from child sexual assault, with her two little people, and love of writing about all things from life in general. 

thank you to the two ladies that gave me my voice back in writing . I chose the images for this post as a reflection of what I just told you. The image with the flowers, is much brighter when you see your purpose in the background, and the image of me on the bed is pretty much a reenactment of where I was on Sunday morning.