Category: blahblahblah

“What about me?” It’s cliché but what we’re working with here

“As Labor politicians head to Canberra to discuss #CostOfLiving, #FOI reveals that, in the last 12 months, neither Minister Rishworth, Shorten or Collins have received briefings, reports or analyses on the effects of the cost-of-living crisis on welfare recipients. #fail #auspol”

Yeah, of course they haven’t. They run inquiries, make statements and chat to charities but don’t actually care about what it’s like to try to survive on welfare in this county.

Youth allowance is clearly the worst. with the politicians assuming you can both rely on your parents but they can’t have too much for you to be eligible. And it’s up til 24 years old… because we all know that you get a kids discount on food and rent til 24. Oh what, that was 12 for the kids meal? My bad.

The next table shows JobSeeker rates. $686 a fortnight if you’re partnered and your partner doesn’t earn much at all. $802.50 for singles. How DO people look for work on less than $50/day? or even on $57?

I get $59/day on DSP and I don’t have to leave the house and participate in society. Oh, I should be able to? Tell that to the cost of living committee.

And rent assistance? $85/week that just pushes up rents and makes it impossible for those not already receiving it to enter the rental market? Zoe, you have no idea, you think that it’s just a nice little supplement when really it’s just 18% of my rent. Forgive me for not being all grateful for the $13 a week extra I got just before my rent went up $60/week and we had to spend thousands moving.

I’m not feeling coherent yet, I’m only on my first diet coke, I didn’t sleep well and people were being loud and had the tv on this morning and I can’t process all that before say 10am.

I emailed Foodbank seeking more information about how donations work and who pays for what and why some places charge customers and some places aren’t allowed to but I didn’t get a response. I emailed TPG asking for use of a wifi modem til my innernet gets installed on Feb 29 and I didn’t get a response. I emailed Dan Repacholi to ask his to ask for an increase to welfare at the crisis meeting tomorrow but he just said he’s find out what was going to happen at the meeting himself and pass it on. Don’t shoot the messenger, even if he can shoot himself.

I’ll leave you with Nollsy while you email your local MP what would make a difference to you this cost of living crisis in the vain hope that they even have input into the process:

25 degrees at 8am

What do you mean it was hot last night? I mean it was warm though the day, but it just didn’t cook down. And here’s the proof from the Govee tracker I have set up in my bedroom to report back to Better Renting’s summer tracking.

And this was after Bruce put the aircon back on in the living room around 3am to hopefully push some relief down the hallway to us. We had our ceiling fan and Bunnings fan going all night, window was open, closed it when the aircon went back on, but no luck. No wonder I had to strip off and woke up feeling dehydrated and grumpy.

The news keep talking about the humidity and the high dew point, and yeah, while the temp’s only been a tad over thirty you start dripping when you leave your car or and other aircon. Even had the fogging up glasses going in one transition this morning!

So I don’t know the best approach. Our new home has an air con in the living room, where we spend our days so we use that. But we’d gotten used to having the aircon in the sleeping area from sleeping in the living room at the last place after the kids and bub moved in. We have a spare queen mattress from the bed that’s not assembled so we could drag that to the living room for the next month or so for spells sleeping out here. The mattress is okay but not ideal like that.

Decisions decisions.

a frozen fruit

In the mean time, it’s snacks of Frozen Poppers and Zooper Doopers to keep the sugar and the spirits up. At least Zooper Doopers were half price when I was at woolies yesterday!

It’s the 8th. Things are supposed to be getting back to normal.

I still don’t have internet. More of the saga happened – I’d had the install booked for the 5th, Friday, for a month now since the original offer of it being installed today caused me to melt down because why should we have to wait a month? So, come Friday morning I’m waiting around as confirmed by several text messages when I’m contacted to say it’s being rescheduled for the 17th.

Yeah not happy. The extra two weeks was one thing, but also having already been waiting that morning, with all the texts from TPG and NBN making sure someone would be there in the previous days. Oh and they’d direct debited $75 for the month that morning too!

So, I don’t think I actually cried this time, but I spent an hour on the phone to them, and then it was booked in for 8-12 Saturday.

Come 11:30 Saturday morning, the NBN the calls me himself to say he’s definitely coming today and he’s text me himself to say when he was on his way and to ignore the text that was just about to come through sayng he was on his way then.

So, 3.45pm he arrives. Pleasant fellow, I made sure he’d had his lunch break before he got to work.

Installed the NBN box inside the house, but no, I still don’t have connection because the fibre to the house has to be laid. Sometime this week or next I’m told. He couldn’t do it because there was asbestos in the pit and he didn’t have the certification.

They’ve credited back the money hey took Friday – only as account credit I really could have used the cash – but yeah no offer of regular broadband FTTC or anything. So I wait some more.

Bruce has given me his second monitor so I can do dual monitor internetting – mostly having a stream in the second window, currently BlizzardGurrl. Go say hey, she’s moving house this month and it’s her birthday!

My UA got registered so we need to put that up for sale. Spent some time decorating the Corolla more, Bruce is spending time trying to sort out HIS car. he stove got replaced on the weekend too so I can now cook up a storm lol, still need new pots.

Slowly slowly trying to get back  into routine. Have Everyplate coming today, so I’ll have that planned out for me again. Bruce son is staying a couple of nights, so I’ll expand tonight’s dish with extra taters, and I’m off to Sydney tomorrow to meet Mel from twitter so the boys can sort out their food tomorrow night, there’s still chicken burger patties from last night.

I have a psychologist appointment Thursday – we had one in Dec then the move was on and so we arranged for after new year. This one is free for me, so that’s the main reason I’m going. Back to Antabuse group Friday, I hope everyone made it through sober and safe, Xmas is always a risky time. I need to work on not overreacting to criticism again.

I’ve been tired and may have a scratchy throat but since that happens to me anyway when I’m anxious about something I’ve been doing RATs which are negative and will mask up and play it as it comes tomorrow, I don’t wanna get my friends sick!

2024 you say

Hello, 2024, and what shall this year bring? I’ve still two more days tethering off my phone, but my NBN connection is supposedly going to be fibre to the premises, so vrooom once I get that you won’t stop me!

Finally got my ears cleared, no thanks to Drs. Went to a new GP today since I was gonna need one anyway, and they wouldn’t do them themselves then and there and I’d have to book in with the nurse – with the first appointment being on the 15th, which is the closest I could get at the specialist ear places too. So I decided to buy an ear syringe at the chemist and spend half and hour irrigating my ears, and by golly everything is so LOUD when you don’t have a plug of wax in the way. So hopefully I’ve got this sorted and I won’t need the appointment come the 15th and can cancel it.

Did some household and giftcard spending this morning at the Reject shop – got a Xmas tablecloth and matching serving plates for next Xmas, as well as a few little bins for around the house. And two purple croptop bras from Best and Less. SChmexy.

Got the AU registered, so now we can sell that, hopefully sooner rather than later. I like it but it’s excess to our needs and I’d prefer the money hey. Then Bruce can get the rust fixed in the other Ford and all the other repairs needed on that. And we can vroom around in the Corolla!

I AM intending to food blog more, but I’m not sure how or what, with budget restrictions but also going back to everyplate boxes for my sanity there may not be all that variety. But we’ll see what happens! Hopefully meeting some Antipoverty Tweeps for lunch in Sydney next week while they’re in town so there may be something in that lol. Or the 15th when the Cooranbong Community hub opens again and I can opshop and foodbank shop there and see what comes my way! Ended up buying a few of the household thins I was hoping to opshop off Amazon, but at least I have them now and can get more settled. I need to take the last of the moving boxes to recycing at the tip, if I can get myself to do that this week that’s be MORE clutter away and more settled for me.

 

Farewell 2023

2023? Nothing really went as planned but hey, we made it through, right?

January 1, 2023

Who else started the year with things they wanted to achieve and find themselves wanted to restart the same things now? I had a great run at the start of the year, practicing Japanese on Duolingo daily while streaming it on Twitch and making new connections.

I think I managed a good 4 or 5 months before I stopped, not bad lol. Hoping to get back into it once my NBN connection is finally in, 5 more days to go after being without it for a month at the new place!

Yeah, we moved at the start of December, after housing and who was in it being a concern for much of the year. We had Bruce’s daughter move in with their partner and newborn in August – and became grandparents. Eeps. They stayed with us til just after this move, it’s been full on and all consuming at times, and I barely had to look after the baby directly! A whole heap of internet people became Aunties by keeping us in nappies and other household needs! Thanks you!!!

I met more of YOU in person, went to some rallies and meetups, thank you!

I want to do more of that this coming year, hop on the train to Sydney once a month for SOMETHING, a rally, training, a meetup. Something.

I saw G Flip live at the Bar on the Hill this year, first gig in forever I’ve been to, and will be Seeing K Flay this Valentines day!

SO, I’m going to start back on the Japanese, and Blogging more things that take thought and research rather than just off the cuff rants. And streaming games and Japanese. I wanna start practicing the scripts properly in Japanese, and maybe Arabic. I’m thinking of getting a graphics pad so I can write on screen better for practice. SO I do it more. I also need to get another second monitor since mine didn’t survive the move. Ugh. (My Wishlist?)

I need to walk more, eat better, all of that. As always. More food blogging perhaps. Not sure what the little life here looks like yet, we’ll see come the 8th or so lol. When life resumes properly for the year. I have a car to register and sell, so I can enjoy the little Corolla we got the week we found out we had to move (timing hey?)

A woman with fluffy purple hair and glasses wearing a purple onesie with lace shoulders and unicorns. She has a romper with fairy bread print over the top. She is holding a coffee in front of a coffee machine
December 31, 2023.

Vrooooom!