OK things have been pretty hard lately but, you know. We're rising to the challenge and that's all you can ask of yourself really.

I've gone from being housebound and horribly depressed to travelling 1.5 hours each way to my uni and doing classes with live people....7 classes this semester which is monstrous but i'm just ready to finish already so, I don't care. I can see the finish line. Yahoo. We sail onwards.

Anyway all of this is pretty tiring. And daughter is pushing back as she does, trying to demand I make her my full time job it seems; it's not uncommon for her to keep me occupied with things she "urgently" needs me to do until midnight, then I study until 4 or 5 am and then she wakes me screaming and snarling at 6am because she can't get her hair styled right or she can't be bothered looking for a pair of matching socks.

Yes, boundaries. I know. We need them yesterday.

Anyway this isn't so bad as I would a million times rather be busy and wishing for more free time than have endless idle days stretching out in front of me. It's a lot easier to stay in the "now" when you're too busy to think, for a start. I appreciate that a lot. My mind can be very unkind to me if I give it enough time to wander.

Complicating matters further, Faceache is well behind in child support. It was meant to INCREASE last month, at last, because daughter had turned 13. So all of those high school expenses I've had to cover alone were finally going to be covered, at least in part, by his child support (or so I thought). But he seems to have arrived at the conclusion that he might as well just not pay it. This is a nightmare for me because my student allowance has been reduced as IF he has paid it and they take 6 months to process an appeal so, because his child support has been increased at LAST to a semi decent amount...I am actually much much poorer. Hilarious huh? Right when daughter needs new runners, new school dress (yep she's already grown out of the new ones from last year, I think she's a nephilim). Right when her Japanese fees are due and she is expected to have $500 worth of school books and, did I mention a new years worth of school fees, my car insurance is due AND needs its registration paid...and I, dear friends, for the moment, have $17 in the bank. And daughter just keeps on asking for things. The well is dry kid, take the hint. Geeze.

Anyway he has to pay it eventually...or quit his job, he doesn't have any other options really. So this will pass...eventually....it's just really really irritating and who knows how long her will drag it out? Sigh.

So blah blah, whinge whine, and in other news, I told you guys about the incident with the wayward children flagging me down the other night and their possibly fake attacker. What I didn't tell you was that we had an actual "robber in the roof" (sounds like a good name for a musical, doesn't it?). Yes friends, I was sitting here the other night in my bedroom, taking a break and watching that delightfully uplifting movie 127 hours when a great banging and clanging began above my head. Someone was inside my roof. INSIDE my ROOF.   O-M-G.

At first I figured it might have been the guy next door as our rooves adjoin, so I texted him 'Are you in the roof?" (because I know when I'm crawling around in tight cobwebby spaces what I really like to do is stop and reply to text messages). But I didn't have to wait for a reply because I heard him outside on my lawn and when I looked out the window, there were he and his friend with torches and baseball bats. Long story short, Mr next door came in and climbed into my roof through the person-hole in the bathroom ceiling and I stood below ready to hand him his torch and baseball bat, making a mental note to ask him to please remove the body if he did in fact end up beating the intruder with the bat because , call me prissy but I just don't know how well I could sleep with a dead or dying junkie lying in my ceiling doing God knows what. Is it one of things you learn to live with, do you think? Well, I didn't get to find out, because the person had gone. Presumably leaving a nicely untiled section of my roof to let the rain in next time we have a storm. Hurrah! We don't where exactly he got in, we just know he was trying to get in through my ceiling to rob next door. He also left big muddy footprints on the bonnet of my car which was parked next to the house. So, thanks dude.

So that was exciting.

Anyway it's been a week of crazy, and I'll blame it in the easter full moon because it can't defend itself and probably doesn't care. And I've been slowly losing my cool and getting more and more agitated and snappy. Yesterday daughter arranged to go to the beach after school (they begin school holidays for 2 weeks today) with a bunch of friends and I was not at all content for her to be swimming (its cold, there was noone else on the beach) without any adults about so, myself and another girls mother sat in the cold and chatted for a few hours while the girls frolicked in the freezing water. Then after I had spent 3 hours waiting AND driven a carload of stinky bay-water soaked  girls to get food and back, daughter announched she was going to stay at a friends house and the girls mother asked, could I drop off some clothing for daughter. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. So, by the time I sat down last night I was too tired to do anything and this morning I studied for hours and then decided to take the dog for a walk around the bay to hopefully shake off my angry mood and find some serenity. Because what better place for serenity than by the bay, right?

Except it's Good Friday and everyone and their dog was by the bay fishing, since murdering sea creatures is the customary way to celebrate easter around here. Which meant nightmares for me because, their dogs kept running up to my very excited and upset husky who cannot be let off his lead around fishermen because for some reason he feels the need to pee in their fish-buckets and they don't seem to like that very much at all. So the walk was a shoulder-wrenching battle complete with a lot of expletives and I arrived home angrier than ever, took the dog inside and walked back to my car to go to the supermarket and, here, finally, was where my week took a turn for the better.

What I was confronted with was, Mrs Over The Road standing by my car waving her arms around and babbling. (She's been pacing up and down the street raving for days). Anyway as I walked towards my car she asked me in a pretty aggressive voice "Oh and how are YOU then, Are you alright?" and I smiled and said yes thanks, how about you.. and then she asked, in an even angrier voice "And Prince Charlie, how is HE? Is HE alright?" and I shrugged and unlocked my door and then she drew in a big deep breath, you know how people do when they really want to yell something loud, and then she ROARED in a voice that sounded as though it came directly from the depths of hell, "AND HOW ABOUT THE PIG OF ENGLAND?? IS HE ALRIGHT TOO???IS HE??????"

Oh lordy, I had to somehow keep a straight face to open the car door and get in and drive away while she stood there nodding at me in the rear-view mirror as if she thought she'd got me a good one.....I drove around the corner, pulled over and laughed until I cried and omg I'm still giggling an hour later. Turns out what I needed was a laugh because I feel SO much better now. All the anger and frustration just rolled away with the tears and snorting. So I'm putting that event on my gratitude list. As well as the Black Swan family we found when we were walking (it wasn't ALL bad), and the cat who made me laugh because...well, here, I'll just show you. Apparently he's too good to have his picture taken these days. Perhaps he has been learning bad habits from the Pig of England. lol.