Family Matters… Brother Trouble #3

Righty hoe… after a belated amount of time

The third installment of this long awaited saga (haha, i am kidding myself don’t worry) is also another tale that happened while my parents were at dinner at my brothers.

I could try and think of some witty way to start this story but really there isn’t any way to do it, so here goes.

They were all sitting around and Brother #1 goes: “So mum and dad, I have been thinking about it, and you are both getting on in years… so I think it’s time you move into a retirement home. You can spend your days playing games, and meeting new friends”

My parents are both under 65, and I still live at home! I can not believe they said this. When I think of a retirement home I see people moving their for reasons like they are lonely at home, they cannot look after themselves and things like that. My parents both have a lot of friends, are perfectly capable of looking after themselves (and me) and sure as hell do not need to spend a lot of money other people doing it.

I guess without knowing my family this may not seem an interesting tale, but I just have to get it out. I cannot understand how my brother could get it so wrong, to not know his only parents well enough that this is the biggest insult they have ever given them, and there have been a few of them too. Mum herself said to me “All I could do was laugh, as the only other option was to cry”

Oh, a side story I just remembered… my brother also once told my dad that he needed more high class friends, and that he should be hanging out with lawyers and accountants etc, not people like builders, god forbid!

Right, Pebbles out for now. Thanks for reading and enjoy your day

Family Matters… Brother Trouble #2

Righty hoe people installment number two time!

So another quick background needed to begin this story, my 2nd oldest sibling, sister #1 is currently 8 months pregnant and in England.

Brother #1 is currently the only sibling to have a child, so his son is mum and dad’s one and only grandchild, but when born they were told that they could not visit immediately as they wanted their child to only know them for the first few days minimum. They were really upset but went along with it. My brother #3 was leaving to move to England about 4 days after the birth and mum had to beg for him (& them) to be allowed to see nephew #1 before he left… they were only allowed for a very short time and they had to call brother #1 when they were close to the hospital, but at least they saw nephew. I did not see my first (and currently only) nephew until he was well over two weeks old on the other hand!

Right… to the story!

During the course of this dinner my mother and father went to on Monday night the topic of my parent’s travelling to England for the birth to which SIL (sister in law) started talking about how wasn’t Brother #1 early? And nephew was early too, so maybe they will be too late for the birth? So firstly this isn’t that nice a thing to say at all but this isn’t the worst of it.

She started to talk about how she went into labour at 4am monday morning and by that evening her mum & dad & brother & sister & friend who was a midwife had all come down from Palmy and that by the end of the labour her mum was pacing the hospital room and all the family were continually checking in on her – Queue birth on Wednesday sometime.

Right now innocent enough remarks right? HELL NO!!! During those 2 days of labour we recieved not a single call saying that she was in labour and hold up, her WHOLE family was at the birth, yet mum and dad alone waited 4 days?

This is what gets to me, where in this whole process did my brother #1 not think that maybe, just maybe our parents may like to know their first grandson was being born? Or maybe SIL’s parents wondered why they were missing? But no, obviously not.

The sad thing is a lot of things clicked into place… that call dad had to make when they were near the hospital? It was likely to give SIL’s family time to clear out. There are also pictures of them all in the hospital. We kind of guessed that SIL’s family are their real family and had been there, but actually hearing it from SIL was the icing on the cake so to speak, mum is so devistated and just can not work out what she did wrong, what she could have done to make her son and DIL hate her so much.

So this is faux pas #2 that brother dear made. A long time ago I know, but it really does hurt thinking being his sister means so little I could not even meet my nephew until weeks after the birth. I only held him twice in the time he was under 6 months. TWICE!

What has really made me open my eyes to how bad this  really was is that my partners brother and SIL had a baby last year, now darling sweet child she was, she needed to be in the ICU as she was a tad pre. The day after her birth Malc’s brother took us in to see her and not only that, picked the angel up and let us hold her. I was so nervous about holding such a tiny thing but it was the most amazing thing ever, I hate thinking how I missed out on this with my own nephew!!

Over the last year I have seen Malc’s neice nearly ever fortnight, seen her grow, start to crawl, start to talk… she is almost walking too. Yet it is bittersweet as I never got to see this with my own nephew… but what can you do right?

Anywho I think that is enough bitterness for installment #2 and yes there is a 3rd and final one too, just to remind you all three of these are all from just this dinner! My brother may be blood, but that doesn’t seem to mean much unfortunately. Thanks for reading and if you think horrible things about me please forgive me. Some things need to be written down, and by giving these here thoughts to this computer and sending them away maybe I will find some peace from the hurt… some ointment for the bitterness and just a general letting go of it all.

Family Matters…. Brother Trouble #1

So as some of you know I am from a big family, I am also the youngest member of that family.

Decided that after hearing from my parents a particularily ruthless story to do with Sibling #1 I would share it with you all… and some other irksome tales.

Background quickly this is my 37(I think) he has been married for just over 5 years, and has a 4 and a bit year old Son.

My parents went around Monday night as it has been their birthdays in the past month and a bit. First story begins… a couple of days before mums birthday I call my #1 brother to say my #2 brother and I wanted all three of us to take mum out for dinner, all pay for ourselves and then split her bill. I talked to his wife, not him but she said she would pass the message on.  The next day my brother called mum and invited her and dad round for dinner, a nice dinner just for the 4 of them and Nephew – without first telling me he was not going to go ahead with the dinner idea we had thought of!!! How dare he act like he was the good son by not only screwing us over, but asking mum before brother #2 and I had a chance?! Seriously uncool.

I have decided to do this blog in installments in the end… so here is the first story of my brother’s woefully inept sonship (is that a word? It is now!)

Next installment coming soon!

Advice… its a funny thing.

So I seem to be one of those people that friends… or even just acquaintances will come to and poor out their latest dilemmas to. I have never minded this and like to try and help out people as much as possible, but I always wonder, who am I to give them advice?

Lately I have had a friend in a break-up. Throughout it she came to me a lot with her struggles and wanted my help. Thing is whatever we talked about she never really did, even when we talked it through and decided the best solution. Yet she kept coming back.

I guess it was strange as being an observer it is so easy to make calls about what you see as the best solution, the easiest way to solve problems. But really its not up to us to make any call. I found this so hard though as I kept seeing her get hurt by things that if she had just followed my advice wouldn’t have happened.

I realise now looking back on it I think the best thing to be for your friend is a Teddy bear… this may sound strange but a book I just read described a teddy bear as an ear you can always rely will be there to listen, someone who will let you say everything you need to say and will allow you to come to your own conclusions without forcing their own opinion on you.

Right so to be a teddy bear I need to sit, listen and not say a word. Easy? Hell no. I struggle at the best of times to not say my opinion on a situation as I see it, how am I supposed to keep my opinions out of a situation where a person involved is close to my heart?

I often thought about becoming a psychologist in all honesty as I love trying to help people out and sort through their problems with them. This idea was abruptly thwarted when I realised New Zealand wouldn’t be anything like the psychologists you see on tv, that and the pay is pretty lousy.

Another thing I realised is I don’t really think I myself listen to others advice much… to the point my much beloved Malcolm even got me a “Little Miss Stubborn” book for my birthday. I wonder if in learning to listen to other people when they give me advice, I may learn how to give advice worth following myself?

I don’t think I have written this correctly. The paragraphs seem disjoint, but I think they follow my head right now as I seem to be jumping from train to train super quickly in my head! Sorry about the uselessness of the blog… for all 5 that may read this.

The Mysterious Game from Malcolm… and My New Friends

Firstly say hello to my two new “Friends” I was given them for my birthday, and while out to dinner they got their new names… safe to say I have some rather strange friends… left is Tusks, right is TeaBag

Now to the brunt of this blog, the next two pictures are a mysterious game Malcolm bought me for my birthday, we have no clue what it is!! any help?

Right… thats this blog over… not really a blog if I do say so myself.

Today. Not the most original title really

Not sure what to write tonight, or why I am writing. All I know is I am drawn to this here blog.
I guess we all aspire to be brilliant, witty authors at heart right? Maybe this is as close as I will get.

Talking about being an author… the one type of novel I have always wanted to write would have to be the trashy romance types, you know the really sexy Mills and Boons, Engorged member type ones.  No idea why, I just think it would be such a fun type of book to write, and you could let your imagination run wild with all the tall, dark and handsome or rugged lumberjack tales you can think of. Either that or I just have a dirty mind and think the novels would be an outlet.

Today was my birthday, it was a lovely birthday really. Nothing hugely extravagent or fancy, just a day where nothing really went wrong. I talked to most of my siblings, spent a lovely dinner with friends at Strawberry Fare (boy do I feel sorry for the other patrons there) and just relaxed most of the day.

Malc bought me a board/card game… no instructions though and he is not quite sure what he bought. We think it may be cribbage but I shall photograph it and get it up on flickr/facebook for people to judge. I also got two teddy bears from friends, a walrus and a polar bear, who have been named Tea Bag and Tusks (Yes teabag as in teabagging.. this happened over the roudy dinner)

This is sounding like more of a diary entry than a blog tonight, I wonder just how thin a line those two writing styles have? Must be rather thin as my thoughts can be a blog, but also a diary verse. Or are they really the same thing?

Hmm… this has been a rather waste of space type of blog me thinks. I think brain shut down half way through the Banoffi Pie, wait sorry Banaffi according to Strawberry Fare.

Night Lovely World. Oh I have a mission for you, tomorrow tell someone you love them, whether it be a parent, a lover or a friend. Let them know that someone cares.

Religion… at least it’s where this blog started

I had to go there… mainly because I seem to find times when I can’t sleep at night religion will become the centre of my attention, and I have a lot of thoughts on it that I feel in writing down will make more sense. So here goes, if you get lost along the way stay where you are and someone will come find you… I hope.

So as I kid I went to church, my mother is a christian and she really wanted the whole family to be too (All 7 of us children and dad) so I have grown up with the church background. The Sunday school when I was young where “Sunday Best” actually meant something. I would be dresses in tights and my prettiest dress every week. I loved it, as most children do.

As I was the youngest all my siblings became jaded before me, so eventually I was the lone Heath child going with mum each week… then our church was closed and destoyed to make was for Briscoes and Rebel Sports (Not cool… it was a beautiful church!)

Anywho I kind of lost my way here. I tried other churches, but by this stage I was about 13-14, I must admit I did end up still going to church, but it wasn’t God I was chasing

I guess I never really found my way back to church from there, I only really stopped going about a year and a half ago though. Churches in Lower Hutt (mass generalisation I know) just don’t seem to “gel” with me. So there is my physical christian story.

The harder part to explain is what I believe… I believe in God, there is no doubt here, but I do not believe in Christians much, myself included. I think that by putting that label on a person we immediately raise the bar on our expectations of that person, we also raise the penalties for falling short. I get so upset when people judge Christians as a whole, as really this just isn’t possible.

I also think that conversely Christians themselves can cause trouble by deciding that this labels makes them more than they really are, because we are all just humans, all imperfect. I have heard and been on the sidelines of Christians making massive judgements of their brothers because they feel they are entitled to make those calls. They’re not.

When a christian decides to exclude a person because they are Gay, or because they do not conform to the “right” beliefs they are wrong. When Jesus himself said “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” he wasn’t saying he who calls oneself Christian. He was saying only God and himself have the right to judge others.

So yes, I hesitate to call myself Christian, I hesitate to put a label on myself which has been abused, which has been turned into a dirty word, one which comes with so many burdens to bear that I feel I will never be strong enough to carry.

I also hesitate as I really do fail. I fail to pray every day, I fail to remember my own thoughts, to not judge a person by their clothes, their words or their actions. I am what most people would call a right Bitch. I lay this label on myself easily, unlike that of Christian. I find it is easier to live up to those expectations, that of a jealous, petty and nasty person.

I have spent my adolescence in an all girls “Christian” private school. Before there I like to think I was a happy girl, one without all this hate, all this Bitch really. I was teased, ridiculed and verbally abused in my first few years, I never sought help, instead I retaliated in kind. I became angry and self destructive. I like to blame my school for who I became, but we alone choose which path we will take, no one can force us in the end to walk.

I thankfully found the most wonderful Christian Boyfriend who over the years is teaching me how to love others, and accepts my Bitch while trying to help me learn to hate less. In the beginning he saved me from myself. Now he is slowly saving my friends from me too I guess. I still have fits of rage, I still have outbursts of pure anger, but he seems to know how to make it all better.

I have learnt that a kind word really goes a long way, and I have learnt even strangers appreciate a kind word, even if they think me a tad weird. I would prefer to be labelled weird and eccentric in the end. I have learnt that when I get angry at a friend it is always better to tell them I am angry, to maybe even yell a bit as this way my anger is gone and normally it will be me apologising to them.

Holding in hate will only multiply it.

If you ever think something kind about someone, be it they just look gorgeous today, or that they really have touched your lives tell them. You never know what they are dealing with on the inside and your one small word, or text may be exactly what they need right there.  I like to think that when I have these thoughts they are what God would like me to say, as who knows the other persons turmoils other than them self and God?

Wow… this really has changed completely from what I thought I was going to say… I will admit to y0u few who will see this now I have shed a tear or two while writing this. My school days are not the best years of my life, I mean in perspective they likely weren’t half bad… but at the time, as a young teen it just wasn’t fun. I am not going to go back and read this again, I will not edit it further than a spell check, no doubt it followed no logical path, nor did it explain things in all the detail some thoughts may deserve. If I feel strongly about something have no doubt, I will blog further into my mind later on.

If you made it this far, congratulations, you now know a little more of my fucked up mind

… oh and exit is to your right, comments box is just by the door on your way out, feel free to speak your mind. I know I did

Being 19…

So it is the dusk of my 19th year of living tonight…

This is a scary thought for me, this means in a couple of hours I no longer herald under the title of teenager and officially grow up right?

It is weird thinking that I am half way to 40 now, time really does go by so fast.  I am hopefully in my last year and a half of university, so what could ultimately be my last years of official schooling. I am in my last years of part time work too then.

I guess around this age is a time in which you close the door to a lot of things we associate with childhood and adolescence for good and begin the greater journey of adulthood.  Frankly, that scares me.

I guess I quite like thinking I am still young and that I don’t need to worry about this so called “real world” that older people talk of. But it is time to face facts, the real world is closer than I think
- I am a year away from being a full time worker in a career not just a job.
-I am in a relationship that in August will be four years, a real relationship where someday in the near future words like Engagement and Mortgage may be more than a one day type thing.

This is what scares me, I mean in one moment I feel ready for all this, I welcome this as it’s exciting, it’s real and it is me being in control. But then I think of words like debt, responsibility and… ironing and I dread it oh so much.

I guess there is nothing for it but going to bed at night, and waking up the next day 1 day older. Tomorrow I wake up 20, whether I want to or not. Tomorrow I wake up one day closer to the proverbial “grown-up”.

Tomorrow I shall sleep in.

Hello world!

Where to start?

Hi my name is Pebbles (Suzi) and I’m an…well what am I?

What can I tell you at a glance? I am currently at Victoria University of Wellington studying for a BCA in Info Systems and E-Commerce, although this could change as it already has three time.

I am half Irish. That in itself may not seem anything, but it will make sense down the line and you see (read) me having a full blown rant in which you are like “Woah, is this chick Irish or something?!”

I am what I like to call a Christian in Training… I believe in God, no doubt about that, but I find humanity is too distracting so can rarely be seen shining his light. Hence in training.

I am in love, have been for four years nearly, and plan to be all my life

Other than that I am me, welcome to my little piece of the internet and I hope you enjoy your stay.