Do It For My Mental Health

On Thursday, a collective of 60 mental health organisations form around Australia will be presenting a co-signed letter and a petition from Australian citizens to our PM.  They will be urging him and his government to act immediately to reform the mental health system in this country and provide it with enough funding to actually make it work.  Right now, it doesnt work at all.  People suffer.  People die.  I know this first hand.  

So I wrote a letter to my local MP.  Never done that before.  This time, I just had to.  So with tears streaming down my face, I wrote.  I'd like to share it with you.  And then I'd like you to go here and sign the petition. 

***

I come from a family with a history of mental illness. My mother suffered from severe depression for as long as I can remember. I have had anxiety and depression my entire life, not diagnosed until I was in my 20s (I'm now 41). One brother had schizophrenia. The other had severe and untreated depression.  Both of my brothers committed suicide at the age of 45, within two years of each other. They desperately needed help and they didnt get it because the proper services were not available. Warren, my brother with schizophrenia, was on a forced treatment order and suffering terribly with psychotic episodes and yet was released from hospital to "live in the community". He died in that community too, unnoticed for several days until he had not turned up for his required medication.

Mental ill-health is the leading killer of Australians under 45 (there's that magic number again!) and the leading cause of disability in Australia. It is not acceptable that people are turned away from hospitals, or that government funding for outreach services is either an embarrassing pittance or non-existant.

Does this government care that for each of those Australians that has a mental illness there are many more around them that suffer too? Does this government care that for every person who dies as a result of suicide, their families and friends continue to suffer and blame themselves?

Does this government care enough about its citizens to provide adequate funding for mental health services, so that other families do not have to explain to their children why the uncle whom they resemble so much isnt around anymore?

I urge you to support the efforts of the 60 mental health organisations who are presenting a letter to Kevin Rudd on Thurday. I urge you to support the immediate reform mental health services and increase funding.

I urge you to consider my 4 year old son - the one who looks so much like his uncle - who has a very high chance of living with mental illness himself. What future will this government be giving him?

Yours sincerely,

****

Little Panda and big brother Warren (then known as Robert), c1973

Felix, Aug 2009

Please sign the petition.

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Serenity Sunday

This week is not so much Serene as "Shut The Hell Up and Behave" Sunday.  Meh.  You get that.

[deep breath] Calm blue ocean...calm blue ocean...  Look! Pretties!:

Lovely things from Etsy Finds today: 

1: Wide Leather Wristband by aos Leather USD$20   

2: Origami Cranes by SnWeStore USD$28

More cool things from another op shop raid.  (No, I never stop).  Vintage doilies, vintage patterns and tracing paper, an oriental paper candy box kit and assorted lovelies.  All this plus 2 cars and a novel for $6.  The Candy Box says "English Instructions Including".  Doesn't bode well.

...and sometimes from sheer insanity.

 This project gave me a little island of serenity yesterday.  I've wanted one for ages. Finally I made one: 

 

I'm now completely obsessed with making more pincushions.  Next on the list is a Ring Pincushion, and then possibly one in a teacup.  Just because.

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The Envelope Project

I love Art Projects.  I especially love Completely Random Art Projects.

Meet Me At Mike's is running an art project at the moment called The Envelope Project.  It goes a little like this:

You mail (by actual snail-mail) an envelope to Meet Me At Mike's with something little in it.  Anything.  Possibly not poo. Anything cute or pretty or lovely in some way. They put all the envelopes up in their store window for 6 weeks.  At the end of the 6 weeks, a name from all participants is drawn at random from the universe and that person receives every.single.envelope AND all.their.contents.

Having been a big fan of posting people random stuff for many years now, even almost-strangers that read my old blog (I posted some awesome stuff to those folks) I am Bang Up for posting a little somethin somethin to lordy knows who.

I aint sayin what I posted, but one was made by me some time ago and just sitting in my scrapbooking basket feeling unloved, one was made by Monkey Boy today, and one was made by an animal.  It is not poo.

If you want to find out how to participate, best look here. Check out the rest of Mike's too.  Miss Pip is the Mayor of Awesome-Town!

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My Creative Space

Crap, is it Thursday again?

A toddler with conjunctivitis means no childcare, no playgroup, no visiting friends, no LIFE.  Also not much time for creativity since she stands at my door and cries "Mumm-mmm-yyyyy cuu-uu-ggg-le" for as long as I can stand it.  Today that would be about 2 minutes.  Sometimes I'm a hard-ass mamma and just let her scream until she stops, but when the kid is sick some stupid maternal thing kicks in.  Probably so we dont inadvertantly kill them with our hard-assness.


I did manage to sneak enough time after my writing group yesterday to stop at my fave op-shop, where they lured me in via a shopping trolley full of handbags for $1. 

Cute little vinyl-lined toiletries bag, looking for a purpose.  How lovely is the fabric?

The Handbag Stash:  Two little bags, the toiletries clutch, a patchwork shoulderbag, and a briefcase thingy.  I've ALWAYS wanted a briefcase thingy.  $5 the lot = awesome

There was some divine oriental fabric, and a chrome 50s chair for $2 and step-stool.  The stool needs re-upholstering, but it was $3!  I clearly remember one just like this in my kitchen when I was a kid.  Of course we had the chrome-leg faux-marble table and chairs to go with it.  We were, like, groovy.

 3m oriental loveliness, 2m coffee velvet, 4 metres soft butter-yellow cotton = $7.

Finally I got around to doing some very simple stuff like changing buttons on a recent 

Boring Brown op-shop cardi.

 and then decided to go uber-nuts and put buttons all over it.

The buttonifying of Boring Brown Cardi will take a while methinks. I dont know what it will look like when its done, but that is where the fun in hand-sewing 3000 buttons lies.

What's happening in your Creative Space today?

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Serenity Sunday

Today's Serenity Sunday is brought to you by the good graces of my friend who lives round the corner.  Aware of my Near-Deathness, she offered to take Felix for the morning thereby halving my stress and doubling the potential serenity-factor.

When you dont have any family and you have a small circle of friends and you live in the Boonies, a break from the kids - even when near death -  is a rare thing indeed.

Monkey Boy and Felix left, and Ella dragged my sorry arse outside, even though it was so cold the rainwater in the toy trailer was still covered with ice and we could see our breath in the air.  Do kids not feel the cold???

I'm glad she did drag me outside, because this is the first thing I saw:

Illuminated Leaf

Discarded.  I think I'll turn this into a planter.

Apple Feast Continues (compare with last week's photo)

Buzzy

Chalk

Chilli

Sshhh!

Warrigal Greens: self-seeder, rampant ground cover, use as you would spinach.  Awesome.

Winter Morning

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12 Months of Crafting The World: Month 1

I've had a little somethingsomething in my list of things to do for a while, but with sewing for the shop and sewing for the kids and occasionally sewing for myself and running a business and being a mum and having an internet addiction, where's the time going to come from? Less Twittering? I.Dont.Think.So.

As mentioned in previous dispatches I need a kick up the butt to do things sometimes. So I pulled this project out of hiding and decided it was the Thing To Do for the Craft Challenge this month. Halfway through the month (practically anyways, especially if you dont count the Sundays) and it still wasnt done. Heaping all kinds of hate upon myself, yesterday I dragged my sick-and-getting-worse self off to the studio and made it happen.

There was some of this:

and some of these:

which became little fuzzy piles of this:

Then there was a bit of this:

and then Monkey Boy and Felix came home with leftover this:

so after I stuffed myself, I stuffed this:

And when I'd done, I was cold and shivvery and had body ache and felt like utter shite and I went to sleep for three hours.  But I'd made this:

In case you are wondering, this is the panda I based my SparklePanda logo on.  I thought I might make some more, maybe to use as keyrings or make him a bt smaller and he could be a magnet or a brooch.  What ya think?

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My Creative Space

Up until very recently, I had been doing all of my sewing in our dining room, in a room with no windows, one recently-added skylight, no storage space and a tiiiiny 1930s table that used to belong to my grandmother.  It was the major thoroughfare of our home and consequently there was much in the way of Lets Annoy Mummy and Getting Pins Stuck in Bare Feet.

Thanks to subtle hints badgering snarly comments from Monkey Boy, we swapped our spaces.  He moved all his Man Cave stuff out of our study and formed a nice little barricaded den for himself in our dining room, and I get the fully renovated, window onto the garden, huge space, walls lined with bookcases, more tables, more storage and with-a-door Good Room!

So while I deal with getting some chest infection thing thanks to taking Prednisolone for too long, and try to muster up the strength enthusiasm giving a rats arse about my contribution to the 12 Month Craft The World Challenge (which I TOTES will share with you soon), here are some piccies of my new Studio.

I've had this Singer since 1982, 1st Year High School.

Setting up for the photo shoot

Floodlights from Bunnings.  Yes, that is a giant inflatable Boxing Po you can see on the floor.

AWESOME therapy tool.

Master Patterns

Vintage button goodness

And my creative work for the day is this Photoshopped image of my craft supplies and tin, all of which I have had since childhood. 

What is your creative space like?  If you feel like sharing where you work and what you're working on you can play along with Kirsty every Thursday at Kootooyoo's My Creative Space.

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