Hello 2026, and everyone coming into it with me. Sadly some people were left behind last year, some were also cut off and I’m just going to have to run with that. Fortunately I still have all my favourites around the place – IRL and on this interweb, with few going by the wayside with the SM age restrictions, even if we’ve lost DMs – if you ever want to contact me come here and find my contact form.
Trying to figure out some new routines, around meal planning, getting out of the house each day for mine and Maxi’s walk. I’m going to still get meal boxes some weeks, but also do some more traditional (and cheaper hopefully) “Aussie” home cooking, so expect rissoles and veges at lot, depending on what I can source in my shopping. I’m going to meal plan where I can, and then throw that all out the window when there’s a free load of groceries offered and I make steak for dinner lol
Google photos decided to show me pics from my Canberra and Brisbane trips from the first half of the year, so guess it’s time for an annual recap of sorts! 2025 was huge for me, brilliant in many ways, lots of good things, but lots of realities of working as me with other people so I also put myself through a lot of hell for those results.
I finally got to meet Avery in person, catching the train with them to Canberra for the 5 years since the covid supplement presser. Thank you to Kristin and the Antipoverty Centre for herding us cats for that one! “We call that social murder” was one of my favourites, as well as me being brave and doing ABC Newcastle on the morning of the press conference at parliament house.
I went through several burn out phases this year, and am currently in I’ve quit everything and am trying to resent mode. I loved working with and for AUWU and Antipoverty Centre this year and met some amazing people and learned some amazing things and talked about my pet projects a lot.
May saw some exam supervision for the selective schools and opportunity class tests – high pressure for such little kids! (Year 6 and year four kids). Fortunately ours went well (no riot police like in Sydney) with them being all done online on laptops in the venue these days. And I got to catch the new trains which finally started running after so many delays. Gonna miss the old V-sets.
Conference was frikkin intense and I presented on the hidden harms of foodbanks (slides) and ran around like a nutter and yeah, it was a lot and was a lot of positive things, but I’m not putting that much of myself into something like that again. *dies*
It took a bit the recover from the Conference, and then I had a birthday and ate takoyaki. Then a week later I broke both my wisdom teeth and needed one out which was a painful and bloody saga which also took the best pat of a month of the year.
I got heavily into Hello Kitty Island Adventure in that time, which was a good relief from some of the other stuff I was then working though while trying to do my annual Liptember fundraising. Which I made it through but wasn’t able to push nearly as hard as my good years.
Did HSC supervision again. And while doing it and also helping my sister with NDIS and other things were great for feeling like a useful adult with skills, I fell into not being able to maintain it unfortunately.
So we’ve gone into the festive season in home focus mode – back on all my meds including Antabuse, focused on my daily tasks around the home and to look after me. Routine and basics. With festive flair.
I’m running the #PoveratiXmas threads over on Twitter and Bluesky again this year, with the impending age-restriction on the internet looming over the heads with my friends who don’t have ID for whatever reason (cost, being housebound) worried we’re gonna lose them to the whims of the government. Remember that law they only gave 24 hours to respond to? They one-upped themselves in the dying weeks of this year’s parliament with Section 5 being pushed through after being not whispered about in the consultations. This is despite over 40 organisations calling for it to be scrapped and Lidia Thorpe, and others in the cross bench voting against it and fighting to have it removed from the main bill. Now THAT was a flurry of activity that I’m proud of my friends in the anti-poverty sphere for their pushing after dear Tom raised the alarm on Michael Klapdoor’s keen spot.
Despite the seriousness of these crimes, I am utterly unconvinced that this is how the problem should be addressed, or that the welfare system should ever be used in this way.
Punishing criminal offenders is the job of the courts. An arrest warrant is certainly not a conviction. pic.twitter.com/6FXfcYSCCr
Thank you all for another amazing year, through all its highs and lows. I’ll hopefully continue to see you all in some form of this weird internet space as society continues to turn in on itself.
If you’ve appreciated my content in whatever form it took, consider helping me out through supporting me financially (one-off or can sign up to make a monthly dono, kinda like a patreon but not) or sending my a treat off one of my wishlists – Amazon, Youpay, Thone or Steam.
When I lived in Canberra, I’d go to Jus Cuts every school holidays for a hair cut. Often in a lunch break to Woden Plaza, while my schedule was quiet. It wasn’t a luxury, I just didn’t care much for fuss, so it was enough. Then I’d do my box colour, slightly plum or purple and be right for 3 months.
Going to the mall in my lunch break was one of the weird things I needed to do for my autistic coping, though I didn’t know it til I moved to Sydney and my manager told me I needed to have lunch with the other members of the therapy team and I baulked, realising that that 30-60 minutes of lunch was needed for me to reset so I could deal with people for the rest of the day.
This is why stable employment is important for the Autistic or ADHD adult. We need to know it’s okay to spend our lunch breaks regathering, or that Fridays are casual, we need to know we can keep that routine and have that time to decompress before performing our craft (for me Speech Pathology – I was good at it) for the world.
I had an OT colleague who went for a run around the oval next to the old school we worked in, self-regulating, so she could be the professional all the parents needed once we clocked back on.
I loved my misfit, public servant colleagues.
So I got my hair cut today, and my face waxed, as is needed when you’re a stepgramma. $100 or so down, but I feel better for it. It’s nice to look after yourself, even if it’s painful.
I think I’ll get my sister to repurple me this time, so she can do the bleach. I need to be there for her, given the NDIA being cunts and not even respecting her request for an appointment to be made before calling her to reject the extra support we wanted for my nephew.
Exiting time where, because the cops couldn’t catch the sov cit who killed a couple of them, we get to seem the “Labor” party try to pass legislation that would mean that all the cops would need to do was issue a warrant, and they could cut off you welfare.
I don’t care if you’re a good person or not, I think there should processes for this? Especially when cops aren’t that great at identifying to perp, especially where there’s an Aboriginal woman involved.
*sigh*
Fortunately Lidia Thorpe is trying to get the amendments cancelled, but when the LNP (however dysfunctional they are) they are still more in cahoots with the Labor party than we’d all like in terms of wanting a future for our kids.
So yeah, even though, if you’re “on the run” from the cops, it’s unlikely you’d pop into your job network provider for your fortnightly appointment, Labor’s decided that, rather than bring back the 6 year limit on welfare debts that the frikken ROBODEBT royal commission recommended and that just makes sense, they’d deny Wilkie’s amendment and pop in one to circumvent the rule of law
Cos Labor, the party of what now?
Hilar, they just posted the annual Giving tree nonsense with the salvos and I’m reminded of that time our dear charities minister gave a gold plated cheese board to the salvos giving tree and there’s no way to come back from that lmao
It’s okay, my capacity isn’t yet screaming at me to stop – I’ve been managing myself alright given the other things I’ve taken on. But the little twitch in my left eye this morning was telling me to slow down a little.
Ness often talks about the difference between having capability and having capacity (but damned if I can get my head around funding a good post on her blog or socials, let’s see if I can come back with one) in the context of work expectations, but also in what can be supported for disabled people.
Like, I was asked if I’d be presiding officer for the HSC exams at the school I’ve been supervising at for 2026. Yes, I have the skills needed. I might baulk at some of the people management stuff but I can do it. But I know I simply cannot sustain that level of work – not even counting the lead in time and prep – of 12 hour days for the four weeks, with the responsibility of making sure those 150 kids get their HSC delivered, AND not go insane or crash out or something less dramatic but equally threatening to the delivery of the exams and my long term well-being.
So I declined. Which is the right choice. Given that even the 2-3 days, some half some full, I’ve been doing, with days off in between is more than enough for me. I’m thriving off doing it – I like being able to be responsible and capable and respected for my skills and being able to train and support other staff, but an unofficial 2ic role is more my speed than taking on the whole thing.
It means I can also still function outside of that – once I recover from the day of being “on” and do the other things I want and need to do to look after and be with myself and others I care for. Which some have needed more of lately. Which is all good, and I feel useful and closer to them for it. But again, balance and capacity need to be respected. And I need to be in charge of that for me because I know me best and can regulate me best.
