My Changed Life (see previous 3 posts)

So, I'd like to share some photos of where we are now, and our lifestyle:

This is my little garden.

This is our river right in front of our caravan, this is where I sit to think or write or paint. This is what we look out our front window at. 

And this is a few metres upstream.

This was tonights sunset, I sat with a drink after our barbeque and watched the sun go down, pure heaven!

And this is my favorite sunset picture from when we were first living here.

Why I Changed My Life - part 3

I had a small 3 bedroom home packed full of stuff. For those of you who know me, I love art and craft and my house used to be filled with yarn and fleeces and spinning wheels and tools and art supplies by the boxful. Plus all the stuff that I made for friends and our home.

My boys had bikes, scooters, green machines, skateboards, cubbie houses, outdoor building stuff like nails, hammers, saws, wood, homemade bike jumps and tracks. They had numerous electronic gadgets, computers, game consoles, water toys - kickboards, donuts, lifejackets, balls, frisbees, footballs.

We had pets, furniture, whitegoods, clothes, books, plants and all sorts of gadgets.

I had already been decluttering for months, but now it was time to get really serious. I decided I would not pay for storage for anything, if it didn't fit in our van, it was out, gone. I LOVE all the stuff I read about minimalism.

I sold a few things on ebay, gave away a ton of stuff on Freecycle, took a couple of dozen stationwagon loads of stuff to all the op shops near the house, had the biggest hard rubbish pile we ever had, and made two trips to the dump.

My boys sold a few of their things on ebay too and made a good amount of money! They were thrilled watching people bid.

We went to the van twice and cleaned out all the stuff in it that we used for holidaying, and took it straight to the op shop.

It was then ready to be filled. We took two stationwagon loads up to the van the week before we moved, and then had two cars full on the day we moved.

My friend (with my son 15) towed the van in his 4wd and I followed behind with my younger son and all our animals.

My friend brought up the spare barfridge (that I will give away as we got given a bigger fridge for the van when we got here), my barbeque and a guinea pig cage up for me in his trailer, the following weekend when he visited.

We went back to the house for a couple of days to clean and finish up, then handed in the keys on the 8th of November and here we are!!

Do you know there are SO many wonderful things about living in a caravan??

- I NEVER have to mow a lawn again
- I NEVER have to clean a toilet or bathroom again
- housework takes no time at all
- as long as you don't let clutter in it's really quite easy
- I bought some pots and some flowering plants and have my own mini-garden next to the drawbar which doesn't even need weeding
- because we cut back on so much stuff, what we have is what we love and use

We are mostly unpacked but still have a few more boxes to go. And I'm still organizing where things go, I'm learning where to keep things used most often and store away those used not often.

My boys have settled in amazingly well. They are loving the freedom to ride their bikes all around the caravan park and getting to know all sorts of people and kids.

We have been out to all the local small towns exploring and taking lots of photos. We've joined the local library and got a huge pile of books on the local area. We are right near the high country mountains and keen to go exploring all through ther in my friends 4wd on the christmas holidays.

We go to the local pool a few times a week and the botannical gardens playground a few times a week too.

My older son was a bit of a mess about starting his new school but they were fabulous with making him welcome. I drove past and saw him playing footy with the other kids on his lunchbreak on the first day, and stopped in. He was happy and smiling, and when he got home he said how much he enjoyed it, and even likes it better than his old school. (He loved his old school before the bullying).

I think he was so afraid he'd be bullied again, but all went really well and he's settling in really great. His two teachers have been incredibly supportive and have kept me updated. I feel really happy he's happy, things were really rough for a while.

to be continued....

Why I changed my life – part 2

So I knew of a particular country town where I had spoken to the principal of the special school a number of times and she seemed lovely. I did some research and had a number of positive reports from other parents and professionals about the school. I was happy with that.

So, the next thing would be where would we live? I certainly didn't want to be paying out hundreds in rent and I couldn't get another housing commission house as there weren't any available.

So we had lots of family talks and decided to move into our 30 ft caravan, as long as we could find a caravan park where we could at least keep our cat. Keisha is only about 5 years old but is almost blind and doesn't hear too well either. She's happy to eat and sleep and purr and be cuddled, so is happy to live inside in comfort.

I researched caravan parks and came across one that I really fell in love with. It's right on a river, it's ALWAYS been my dream to live near a river, I find them so calming and healing and peaceful.

We came up here three times for a weekend, looking around at all the services, the schools, hospital, shopping centre, playgrounds, etc etc. And it had everything we needed.

Then we came to the caravan park and asked about becoming a permanent resident. Yes we could! AND yes we could keep our cat, and then son 15 asked if we could keep our guinea pigs, yes I suppose so!!

We walked out of that office with a handful of paperwork skipping and squealing like crazy people!! It was now all go ahead, if I had the guts to do it......

You see I have no family support, know NO ONE in this town, didn't even know my way around, and am solely raising two boys with autism. Was I nuts!!

I was terrified. But life is too short to stop doing what we want to do due to fear. I wanted our life to be better and I was determined to make that happen.

So this is what we did....

to be continued....

Why I Changed My Life - part 1

Hi all, it's a while since I've been here and I have loads of news.

I completely changed my life. It was time. I've been wishing and waiting for years for things to happen. I put all the right things in place, but I was still stuck where I was. It came to the point where if I didn't DO something, I was going to be STILL stuck where I was in another five years time.

Life is way too short.

What I am talking about, is that I was trying to move away from the suburbs (and a very difficult ex) out to the country. I've always been a country girl and I've been stuck in the suburbs in a housing commission house for the last 15 years.

I was grateful for my house, don't get me wrong, but there was so many painful memories there, plus the maintenance on the property was pretty much non-existent and it was really showing.

Things came to a head when my son (15) who has autism, adhd and an intellectual disability was bullied at his special school. The bullying went on for months, in 6 months I contacted the school in his diary, by phone or in person MORE THAN 16 times, and nothing changed.

I was given answers like, "why doesn't your son take public transport instead of the school bus?" It was easier for them to suggest moving my son off the school bus than deal with the pack of bullies who traumatized him relentlessly almost every day.

He was punched, kicked, shoved, given a black eye, punched in the head, bruised on his arms and legs, had food thrown at him, called names, spat on and more. This happened on the school bus and in the playground. I saw and photographed the bruises.

One afternoon when I was waiting to speak to his teacher over another incident, one of the bullies walked right past my son IN FRONT OF ME and called him a fuckwit!! I was stunned.

His teacher didn't believe him and said things like "M is a crybaby and goes home telling his mum stories."
"M is having a bad day today because he's off his medication," to another teacher in front of the whole class.

At the second last meeting with the school vice principal I was promised that my son would be moved to another class away from that teacher, the bullies would be dealt with, and that my sons school diary would be returned to him. His teacher comveniently lost it when I started making a fuss. All the evidence of all the bullying incidences was in that diary. I had proof that I had TOLD her all those times. It was never found.

A week later I went back to the school ready for my son to start back in a new class, (he'd been sick for a week with another dose of the flu, he was continually getting sick from all the stress) and when I met up with the vice principal to find out which new class my son was going into, NOTHING HAD BEEN DONE!!!!

He had done nothing, no new class, no dealing with the bullies, no sorting out the school bus bullying!!

I remained calm and walked out of that school with my son and vowed to NEVER go back!

My complaint letter to the Education Dept is in progress, but I've heard dozens of other stories where they don't really give a damn and other parents are even sueing after their children suicided.

My son talked of suicide too, from that day he never set foot in that school again.

DISGUSTED is not a strong enough word.

HOW can this happen in this day and age with all the school bullying policies that are out there now?? How come children and teenagers are DYING because they can't cope anymore?? Why are teachers, principals and other professionals not listening to our kids?? What the hell is WRONG with the system??

So it came time to make some big decisions, it was time to move and begin a new life away from the stress and the heartache.

To be continued.....