So Sick of being Sick

I’ve been sick for past 6 weeks, close to 40 days solid that have been filled with germs. A basic case of the flu turned into a chest infection which in turn developed into pneumonia. Two weeks or so ago I was starting to get better,  still exhausted and lethargic but I felt like the bugs had been killed off. Sadly I was wrong and the germs had yet again set up camp in my chest, they also began creating colonies in my ears, nose, throat and kidneys. My body is a total germ fest and I’m seriously falling apart.

I forget the last time I had the energy to get anything meaningful done, something that’s quite clearly reflected in my blog. No posts, no reviews, not even any tweeting – that’s how much of a mess I am! I even failed to announce the winner of my all on red giveaway when it ended which is just slack and in my head that’s just not good enough – so I apologise for the delay with that.

I also need to apologise that I’ve not posted any reviews lately, I’ve got a huge queue of toys waiting for review and I feel awful that I’ve not completed them, hopefully everyone can understand that at the moment the last thing I’ve felt like doing is playing with toys and I will never ever post a review of any product without using it multiple times and knowing just about everything I can about them. I feel guilty looking at the packages of sex toys lined up in the lounge room, but I know I’d feel far guilty-er if I were to try to fob off half baked reviews. No one has complained to me¹ so I hope people and the companies can understand my situation and have some empathy regarding the situation

Once these bugs are under control and I get some energy back I’m going to do my very best and churn out the reviews and catch up on my commitments. If you are waiting on me to post a review on a product you have sent me and have any concerns please feel free to use my contact form to get in touch or just send me an email.

I’m hoping that  this next round of drugs will manage to kill these infections off so I can get back to my blog and the community that I love.

Hope to see you soon
Violet xx

1. well not yet [↩]

All on Red Giveaway Winner

And the winner is…

 Tickling Pink

with her entry for adding me to her blogroll

Congratulations you have won the wonderfully sexy All on Red Vibrator from Evolved Novelties Roulette line of sex toys courtesy of the lovely folks from EdenFantasys.com

I would like to thank everyone who entered My Red October giveaway – an amazing  706 entries!!  I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologise for making you wait so very long (14 extra days) to discover who the winner is. Due to this I’m giving X a full 7 days to respond to my email before they will forfeit their prize and another winner gets chosen.

For those who like to win free stuff be sure to keep your eyes peeled by subscribing to my feed, following me on twitter or liking Screaming-Violet.com on facebook as I have got another 5 fantastic prizes to giveaway over the next month or so once I get better and start posting reviews once again.

Congratulations again to Tickling Pink – I hope you enjoy your awesome All on Red vibrator courtesy of the folks at Eden Fantasys.

Violet xx

I Won – Thank Jude

I won, I won, I mother-fucking won!

You would have to be a very long time reader or close follower on twitter to recall when my financial nightmare began back at the start of July last year…

Basically what happened was centrelink (the Australian govt agency in charge of social security style payments etc) decided that I was living in a marriage style relationship with my ex/flatmate/kid’s father and had been doing so since 2002. Their decision caused me to loose my weekly payments and in turn created a debt for every single cent they had paid me in that time – to the tune of around $180k. Not exactly the kind of sum one sneeze’s about.

We moved in together back in 2002 for a number of reasons, but the important point is that before I did anything I made sure that it was approved by centrelink. This approval was incredibly important because I was receiving their support due to being a single mother and the person I was moving in with is the father of my child. I realise it sounds immediately suspect, a single mum living with her child’s father – isn’t that like a large number of marriages?  However we weren’t in a relationship, we hadn’t been in one since our son was conceived over 6 years earlier. At the time we were both paying $260 a week rent on each of our own 2 bedroom units that were located just blocks apart. We both wanted our son to live in a house, have a yard and get a dog… but neither of us could afford it without the help and financial support of a flatmate. Who better for to be my flatmate in terms of my son  than his own dad? and so with the approval of centrelink we moved into a house that cost $350 a week and bought him a dog.

Over the years we would both fill out numerous forms regarding the nature of our relationship and how our household functioned… The fact that my ex (not the person I’ve called X  on my blog by the way) became an interstate truck driver in around 2004 certainly made it much easier to share a roof with him as he was rarely around. This is also when it became a matter of… If I didn’t share a house with him our son would never get to see him.

Anyway in July 2010 they took away my income support and raised one hell of a  debt. For a person who can spiral into deep depression at the snap of your fingers it wasn’t a good time for me. From the outset I knew I had to appeal the decision and immediately began that process, but as I had no idea what information they were basing their decision on so it was like stabbing in the dark – needless to say I lost the first two appeals and then had to have it bumped up to the next level and the social security appeals tribunal. And for at least the past year I’ve been putting together my case and fighting it – all the while having sweet F’ all money coming in. I’ve been living and supporting my son on only $100 a week so it has been harrowing – although I just want to say a huge thank you to every single person who has made purchases via my affiliate links as those funds are what made last Christmas possible and often made the difference between whether we could afford to eat or not. (I’m seriously not kidding)

Finally  I had my hearing back in September and have been waiting an excruciating 6 weeks and 1 day for their decision to arrive.

Finally today I got the appeals tribunal decision in writing.

I knew the outcome could go one of 3 ways

1. They up-hold the decision and find that I am living in a marriage like relationship and the debt needs to be re-paid.
2. They find that the relationship is marriage like and I’m not entitled to benefits, but as I had done my best to be honest with them and hadn’t been fraudulent in my actions they could suspend the debt. … OR
3. They find that I am not in a marriage like relationship and they reverse the debt along with back paying me the benefits I was entitled to from July 2010

And as you can guess they went with lucky number 3!!

Now I’ve just got to wait 28 days to see if Centrelink want to take this to the next level above the social security tribunal – and after reading some of the findings from my appeal the chances are they won’t (or at least that’s my hope!) after which I get reimbursed for the months where I’ve been struggling to keep food on the table.

Now I need to explain the Thank Jude bit.

This is going to sound god damned crazy, but I prayed for this outcome.

I got down on my knees and begged for this to go the right way. Little Miss anti-religion bargaining with Jesus and the saints for her life!  (whilst surrounded by an altar of sex toys of course! lol).

See there’s this saint – Saint Jude – patron saint of lost causes and those without hope – as well as Chicago Police apparently and of course St Jude Children’s research hospital…. Anyway…. there’s also a prayer and the deal is you say the  prayer 9 times a day for 9 days in hope of St Jude helping your cause, in return you must re-publish the prayer in thanks to Saint Jude for helping you out.

In the days before the internet you would regularly see it in the classifieds of the newspaper, and there was rarely a week when it wasn’t published in our local paper – often with the title ‘The Novena of St Jude’. These days there are numerous sites where you can o So as crazy as it may seem – here it is, I’m publishing it to hold up my end of this bargain..

May the sacred heart of Jesus be loved, adored, glorified and preserved throughout the whole world now and forever.

Sacred heart of Jesus, pray for us.

Saint Jude, worker of miracles, pray for us.

Saint Jude, helper of the hopeless pray for us.

Say it 9 times a day for 9 days. By the 8th day it is said your prayer will be answered and that you must re-publish and share the prayer thanking St Jude for his assistance.

I’ve used it before in times of desperation and it has never failed me. I can’t believe I didn’t turn to it with either of my earlier appeals, or at times when someone stepping in was really needed – but I’m also a strong believer in fate, so perhaps I was waiting for a time when I truly needed St Jude’s help.

I’m not a big religious person, but St Jude & St Anthony (Patron Saint of lost shit) I have all the time in the world for.

So …

Thanks St Jude you Rock!!

Violet xx

P.S

I found out about this and started writing this post on Wednesday but between lack of internet signal and a heavy dose of the flu have kept me offline and unable to publish it. In the meantime I took the time out to read the entire decision from front to back – It’s got 114 or so “reasons”, “findings and other blobs of legal jargon within it so it took a while to fully read and even longer to comprehend.

Turns out they had already investigated me… and not once, not twice, but three times.  So thrice they went through my life – and by life I mean LIFE – from my birth certificate, tax returns, and the stuff you expect the government to have  right on through to my bank statements dating back to when I opened it as a 9 yr old, utility bills, job applications, leases, even my medicare records that showed which doctors I saw – when people joke about them asking you the colour of your underwear… guess what they don’t need to ask as they already know. Back to the point I was trying to make, twice they went through my life and found that I was NOT living in a marriage like relationship with the guy. They did this in 2002, 2005 and 2008 (those forms I spoke of a moment ago were part of their investigations though I was told otherwise). So on top of the fact that they approved of my living arrangements before they began, three separate times they had raked through the dirt to check if I was in a relationship with him (without my knowledge mind you) and each time they concluded that I wasn’t. But in 2010 they re-investigate me and change their minds, finding that not only was I in a relationship with my ex in 2010, but that I had been all along.

WTF???

P.P.S Once this flu has gone hopefully things will go back to a bit of normalcy around here. Without the big dark cloud hanging over my head hopefully I’ll get the rest of my obviously late Red October posts typed up and published.

catch you all once my nose stops running