Smoking not

I've been craving cigarettes like crazy all day. This wouldn't be unusual if it was August 2004 which is the month - almost SEVEN YEARS AGO - that I gave up my almost-pack-a-day habit.

You never really give up.

From time to time over that seven year period I have had a cigarette. Never while sober, always after a drink or four. The last time I smoked was after Woogsy and I trudged up Oxford Street on a Monday night after several wines and many more whines to buy a pack from the bottle-o. But that was months ago.

But today I am craving cigarettes like crazy.

I'll never understand it. It can't be a nicotine or a psychological or even a habit thing - surely not after almost seven years? Why would I just wake up today and think I'm a smoker all over again? What blip in my brain forgot that I hated it, felt trapped by it, was begging to give up? What tiny synapse has failed to fire and remind me of the wretched cravings endured and outlasted for months and months? How could I forget that the reason I gave up was pregnancy, but the reason I stayed given-up was parenting?

I didn't want to be 'that smoking mum'. That mum who snuck away at odd times of the day and night and returned smelling of guilt. That mum who swore she'd never smoke in front of her kids but wasn't strong enough to resist. Not because she's a bad mother, but because there was something controlling her that seemed bigger than her gigantic love for her kids. Bigger even than that.

My own mum smoked, back in the day when everyone did. Many of us have memories of a smoky eighties-bright kitchen and waves of laughter as coffee was poured and cigarettes lit. I recall the thick haze of the room almost as effortlessly as I recall my mum's sagging disappointment when I revealed at twenty that I was a smoker too (because eventually, you can't hide it any more, you just can't wait). My choice; her guilt.

Mum gave up smoking before I did. After an almost thirty year habit, she just quit one day for good. Her strength and resolve was inspiring, but never once did she say to me 'when are you giving up? When will you stop?' She knew that choice had to be mine. She knew how frustrating it was to have other people try to make that choice for you. It had to be me.

In the end it was Maxi-Taxi and how grateful I have always been to my little man for that. There was no 'final cigarette', no endless goodbye. The double line just meant that the cigarettes went and that was the end of that. I missed the way cigarettes focus you in the present, make you stop and just 'be' for a moment. I missed the easy banter as I shared one of those moments with colleagues, party goers, the girl on the train platform. "All the fun people smoke," I remember a non-smoker friend complaining at one party or another. I agree with her - the smokers conversations are always fab and delicious. Even if the cigarettes are not.

Easy enough to walk away from in the end, when it stops being about you and starts to be about something bigger. The relief at not imposing my unhealthy, unattractive, untenable habit on other people was enormous. Despite that, I think I will always be the kind of person who has one or two during a night out, but that's okay. I don't go out enough to worry about such matters and I've long made my peace with it. 

But today. Today I am craving cigarettes like crazy and it reminds me, once again, that you never really give up.

Have you ever been a smoker? How do you stay given-up?

[Image by Enrique Manas de la Mota]

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Edited 11/7: Just wanted to amend the dates! It was actually August 2003 that I stopped smoking so it's been EIGHT years. Given that Maxi was born in May 2004, I thought it best to clarify that otherwise I don't look like such a fab mother, do I? x

PS - No, I didn't give in to the cravings. Never do. That's the secret. x

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I'm obsessed with giveaways galore right now...

My own...

... My sister's...

...and Down that Little Lane's.

Have fun! x

Chinese Laundry

On Saturday I found myself wandering into one of those random shopping centre Chinese massage places. My back was killing me and I thought a little massage might bring me some relief.

Everyone was very official and efficient looking in their white uniforms and matching smiles. People were blissed out at the reflexology chairs, offering a fabulous advertisement for the services rendered. I figured I could get a half-decent massage for a reasonable price. I said, "I'd like an hour massage on my back, neck and shoulders please."

An ancient lady dressed entirely in black stepped up to the counter beside me. She came up to waist. I could have rested my drink on her toothless head. She stared up at me with the sort of contempt usually reserved for murderers.

"I do her," she said.

"Oh... really?" Ignoring the old witch and talking directly to the official and efficient looking woman behind the counter. "I really need someone, you know, strong. And tall. I'm tall... I..."

"She'll do you," came the firm reply.

I followed as the old lady shuffled out the through the main room, past the staff kitchen and through a door at the very back of the shop. The room was dim and crammed full of paperwork and potions and fungi. An entire cabinet was devoted to acupuncture needles. The shopping centre seemed very, very far away.

"On table," the ancient lady barked, pointing a wizened finger at the sturdy massage table. "I come back, you have no bra on, you got it? Lie face down."

"Oh, okay, yes!" I yelped.

Climbing up onto the huge table I wondered how that tiny old thing was even going to reach my back let alone give me a satisfactory pummeling.  "Fifty bucks," I groaned.

She shuffled back in and barked, "You want melt stuff? I got melt stuff."

"Yeah, okay, whatever," I sighed, willing the whole thing to be over.

She poured something onto my back that felt hot and cold at the same time. Fumes of menthol and wintergreen and something pungent but unidentifiable (probably eye of newt) made my eyes water. The smell went straight to my brain and made my ears rush and my head spin. Disorientated, I barely noticed that she had climbed onto the massage table with me until suddenly I was aware that a toe was holding my neck flat to the table. Dear god, what is she doing? She held onto ropes suspended from the ceiling and she just ground her feet and toes into my back like she was putting out hot coals. She elbowed me, she kneed me, she punched me, she slapped me.

"For the love of god," I squealed.

"You, quiet!" She ordered. "You too impatient. And you got big bottom."

She slipped and slid through all the melt stuff and insulted me left, right and centre. "You too fat." Elbow, elbow. "You don't relax enough." Hit, shove. "You carry child on both hip, not one, you got it?" Punch, punch. "Stand on both feet, not one, you got it?" Shove, knee, push.

Oh my god, I thought, she's a maniac! It felt like she had put me in the washing machine and pressed 'Heavy Duty'.

"You drink that diet coke stuff. No good, you got it? You stop!" Slap, slap, punch.

"Yes, yes I'll stop, I'll stop!" Thinking, oh my god, how does she know that? She's a psychic freak* who's been sent to kill me.

"How long you book for?" she shouted.

"An hour," I heaved. "One hour!"

"I do 45 minute. You can't handle whole hour."

"I. think. you're. right." I gasped.

Next thing you know she's whisper-soft, delicately massaging the knots in my neck. "Ah, see," she crooned. "You like that, lady? Nice, eh?"

I melted along with the melt stuff, mewing like a tiny kitten. "Ah, that's lovely," I purred.

But POW the witch was not dead. She smacked me a mighty blow to the left shoulder. "This better," she barked.

Forty-five minutes later it was over. I rolled off the bench and hunched into my clothes, whimpering softly. I stood up to walk out and every single bone in my back cracked and popped like a percussion set. My foot felt weak on the floor. God, what if she's paralysed me?

But miraculously my legs moved and walking to the front counter, I found myself unfolding like an accordian. I realised that I hadn't felt this good in... years. I felt... straight. I felt... vital. I beamed from ear to ear. The old lady stood humped beside the counter, barely visible over the rim.

"You come back," the old lady said, a statement, not a question.

"Yes," I said. "I come back."

"I do needles next time."

Do you 'treat' yourself to a massage or other therapy from time to time? 

What's your indulgence of choice?

* Only later did I realise that I'd left a bottle of diet coke in the tray under the massage table.


[Image from the movie Marie Antoinette (Sony Pictures)]

This week I'm grateful for... Laughter

I'm merrily getting on with 'healtheaven' and making a few changes here and there. The biggest change is that as of this week LOML has completely taken over my diet. He packs me a lunchbox in the morning with breakfast, lunch and snacks and then makes me my dinner in the evening. It's been fantastic as it completely takes me away from thinking about food at all (as well as completely taking me away from cooking... result!). My only question is: why didn't we think of this sooner!?  Previously I would 'go on a diet' and all I would think about was what I could eat, what I couldn't eat, what was 'good', what was 'bad'. I just bored myself into overeating.

So, this week I'm expecially grateful for my sensible, caring husband and also grateful for...

1. Laughter - in all of it's forms. Life is too short to take seriously and I try to have a giggle whenever I can. I find myself especially funny.

2. Posts like this one from Keep Cate Busy. I had a bit of an 'a-ha moment' (hate that expression, sorry Oprah) reading this. I can't even say why as I've read the same sort of thing many times before, but Cate just seemed to write it in a way that sank in for me this time. So, thank you Cate.

3. My bright orange, yellow and green insulated lunchbox with a lion on the front (!) - It's actually Cappers pre-school lunchbox, but she's got a new one for school so there it was, waiting for a new assignment. I just know I'm going to be sick to death of it within weeks, but right now it's my new best friend.

So, what's making you smile today? Grab my I'm grateful for... button from my sidebar if you like, add your I'm Grateful For post below and please add a link back to me in your post. Then pop over to visit other bloggers who are spreading a little sunshine. Happy day to you!


[Image via Silly Girls Like]

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Link up with our British mates via Michelle at Mummy From The Heart too!

Welcome to Two Thousand and Healtheaven

Hmmm… two thousand and healtheaven? I'm reaching a bit. I told you I would find 20Zen hard to top. I ‘theme’ my years these days, you see. I used to have a long list of resolutions that never got resolved, so one year (I think it was Two Thousand and Mate) I decided to just give the year a theme and really try to focus on one thing for the whole year.

This year it’s Two Thousand and Healtheaven. Time to pull up my socks and pull on my runners, because I’m not going to worry about anything other than getting everyone in Maxabellaland fit and healthy this year. Of course, LOML is already fit and healthy and, well, so are the Tsunamis, which leaves me – only me! – to carry the 20Healtheaven torch on behalf of us all. So valiant.

I’m not going to give you a long list of what I will and won’t be doing. Theming the year doesn’t work like resolutions. Theming is just being mindful of the theme. See, like most things that are actually really hard, it sounds easy!

It's being mindful of choices and remembering that every choice has a consequence, good or bad. It’s planning meals and deciding to go for a swim rather than read a book. It’s joining in on the trampoline, rather than just watching. It's taking good care of yourself. It’s putting health at the top of your mind every single minute of every single day - I just got a bit new year’s resolutionary there. Most days and most minutes will do.

Effectively, I’m going to keep my Two Thousand and Zen-like composure but add bit of ‘oomph’ to it.

So, hey there - HAPPY NEW YEAR! It feels like I’m going to be running towards a very good year this year. How are you feeling about the year ahead?

[Image via weheart it]

Everything's just so uncomfortable

I'm often uncomfortable. Not in pain exactly, but annoying, niggling, buzzing, don't forget I'm here uncomfortableness. And sometimes pain.

We all have our Achilles and my back has never been particularly good. I was diagnosed with a mild scoliosis in my teens which was bizarrely taken back and claimed to be 'one leg shorter than the other'. Yes, that was the medical diagnosis. Regardless, I'm crooked.

After having babies, well, things went rapidly downhill. Some mornings I feel like I'm pushing eighty and Eighty's heavy. Most days, though, I just get on with things and ignore the tension, the tightness, the soreness. Like a tightening noose, it gets more frantic as the day goes on. My shoulders ache, my lower back stiffens, my whole body tenses. Particularly busy days will make even my eyelashes feel tight.

As I stood at my kitchen counter at 3am last Sunday night preparing Mermaid cakes, I started thinking about how lovely it would be to be pain free and 'straight' for just a day or two. How nice it would be to not have to consider my back every time I picked up my children. To be able to skip out of bed rather than creak. To just be in the moment.

Pain makes everything just a little bit less enjoyable. I can't imagine what it would be like to live with 'real' pain 24/7. My heart goes out to people in that situation.

Have you experienced chronic pain or know someone who does? How do you cope with something that constantly makes you feel bad? How do you manage?

[Image by Hilde]

The Zanorexic

Since my How to Look Good Naked post, I've been thinking more about body image. You see, even though I've worked out the key to strutting your stuff naked in the bedroom in the presence of your loving partner, I've yet to discover how to strut same stuff in the public space. Hence, I won't be taking part in Carly's admirable, you-go-girls, love-your-attitude I Heart My Body campaign over at We Heart Life. Me doing that would be WTMI for sure. The world is not ready.

BUT.

Weirdly, with clothes on, I have always thought I look way skinnier than I actually am. Back in my mid-twenties a girlfriend and I dubbed ourselves Zanorexics. No disrespect meant to suffers of anorexia nervosa, of course. It's just that rather than being unable to see our thinness, we were unable to see our fatness.

Fiona put our Zanorexia down to the fact that we were corporate workers who spent an inordinate amount of time at our computers... and we have skinny wrists. Looking down at our hands as we typed away made us think 'look at those bony wrists, I'm just so skinny'.

I put it down to the fact that I have always been unbelievably optimistic to the point where I am able to block out anything negative in my life. A sort of lah, lah, lah I'm blocking my ears so it doesn't exist type of thing. I've always found that flat out denial works really well for most things, up to a point.

I've since realised that Zanorexia has a genetic link. My Dad (hi Dad, I know you're reading this!) is also overweight and - up to a point - oblivious to the effect on his appearance. Many men are, of course.

Now, my frequent use of 'up to a point' is deliberate. Even a seasoned Zanorexic like me realised a while ago that things weren't looking good after years of chocolate abuse. But I'm talking over 20 kegs overweight before it dawned on me that 'secret' snacking isn't so secret after all. That's the power of denial, right there.

So, while I'm not exactly ready to bare my self-inflicted elephantitis to the blogosphere, I have recently made the enormous step of taking off my rose-coloured glasses long enough to give myself a hard look in a full length mirror naked.

Let's just say that I am miraculously cured of my long-term Zanorexia and will be taking steps to get back on track immediately. If you like, you can follow my track at 40 Skinny Street where I post most Thursdays on how I'm going.

I'm guessing most of my female friends will find Zanorexia rather alien, but how are you with denial in general? Does it help or hinder in your life?

[Image by Frollein.M]

Things I learned this week including that you can write on bunting!

1. The letterbox is exciting again! Have you heard of postcrossing? You sign up and mail out a postcard and then you get one back from a random person somewhere in the world. Thanks to the lovely Shannon at Happiness Is, my first postcard is soon to be sent to a lass in Finland... I wonder where my return card will come from?

2. A serger is a specialty sewing machine that makes the same type of finished edge that you see in store-bought clothing. It uses 3-4 threads at one time. (Thanks Chris at Pick Up Some Creativity!)

3. Charlie Sheen is the highest paid TV actor working today. $1.25 million per each episode of that awful Three and a Half Men. Mind boggling. In what other industry could you earn big bucks when you're not even remotely talented in your chosen profession?

4. I've mentioned before that I can't stand adult style clothes on little kids. This week I learned that I may be the only one who feels this way. Apparently more and more labels are designing "cool" fash for the preschool set.  The idea of children being 'on-trend fashionistas' makes my upper lip curl.

5. I can cry and cry over a little girl I've never met. Thinking about the life of little Keisha has had me in tears this week. I respect and admire the way the community she lived in has come forth with an outpouring of grief at her disappearance. The release of 200 balloons to guide her home pulls at my heart. But where were they all when she was living in apparently appalling conditions at home with her apparently drugged up family? Where were they then?

6. You can get blackboard fabric. How much fun is that? See the great image above that I nicked from Modern June's etsy page? The possibilities are endless.

7. Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

8. More than any other generation before or potentially after them (Gen Y seem to have learned from the choices of Gen X), Gen X women are more likely to remain childless.  The Anti-Mullerian Hormone test can safely estimate the number of viable eggs a woman still has. I learned this from a colleague who is desperate to conceive at the age of 42 after 'putting off' having children with the partner she has been with since she was 27 in order to 'focus on my career'. Sigh.

9. Holding your wee in can cause long-term health problems. I wish I could tell you that I learned this one from a colleague, but rather I have been researching it because I have a really bizarre tendency to 'hold on' rather than just get up and go to the loo. So engrossed, or just so lazy? Either way, I've got to stop holding on!

10. Bloggers are quite possibly the most friendly, supportive and non-judgemental group of people in the world. After my breastfeeding share, I received the most amazing comments and emails and I really feel that you have all helped me find peace and be able to close the book on this part of my life. Thank you.

Did you also learn anything special this week? And while you're thinking about that, do you feel the need for a flogging? Head over to Lori's blog and flog your own!

Things I learnt this week including how to make a pinwheel

The weather has been grey this week and my mind has gone grey with it (fortunately my hair has not followed suit). Along with the fabulous weather that broke through on Wednesday, here are a few bright sparks from the week that was.

1. Guinea pigs do not like zucchini. At least, the GPs who are currently holidaying with us won't touch the stuff.

2. A pregnant guinea pig looks exactly the same as an unpregnant one. We know this because we started the week babysitting 2 guinea pigs and now we are babysitting 3 guinea pigs.

3. Even a dedicated, super-experienced chocolate devourer like myself found it tough to get through an entire Bill Granger self-saucing chocolate pudding (but don't worry, I punched through to a brilliant ramekin-licking finish). I'll post the recipe on Easy Sunday so you can give it a go yourself... dare you.

4. The brilliant Old Spice - The Man Your Man Could Smell like commercial was shot in one take. Plus that's a CGI fake hand with the Old Spice rising up out of it like a Phoenix... Of course it is! Even the man my man could smell like couldn't produce a can of Old Spice out of thin air. Or could he?

5.  My new gardener (I just love saying that!), tells me that the reason most people don't garden is really because they don't like getting their clothes dirty. He reckons if you just had specific gardening clothes to change into, getting into the garden would be a breeze (I'm sure there was no pun intended). He's right, don't you think? To motivate yourself in all things, you just need the right stuff.

6.  Draw! Pilgrim taught me how to make a pinwheel, which I think is essential knowledge for any mother of youngsters.

7. If you have bed wetters and you're not acquainted with Brolly Sheets, let me introduce you to your new best friend. Now, technically this isn't something I learned this week as we've been using Brolly Sheets for over a year. BUT, at 3am on Monday this week when the pull-up dam was busted, I learned just how much they truly mean to me.

8. Epstein-Barr virus is the virus responsible for glandular fever, but it’s not the actual virus that causes the symptoms of glandular fever, it’s how the immune system responds that makes people sick. If people are exposed to EBV early in life, their immune system doesn't react. It's those of us (I had GF in 1993-1994) who are exposed later in life that suffer. And you can get reactivations, too.

9. We are all creative beings, but convention often strips us of our ability to think, to feel, to be our true self. So often our instinct is to 'correct' our children, when really we should nurture our instinct to 'respect'. Allow your children the freedom to express themselves in the way that feels right to them. If the sky is green in their world and the grass is blue, then that's a rather marvellous world, don't you think?

10. The chicken is the closest living relative of the Tyrannosaurus-Rex. Really.

Did you learn anything new this week?

[Image]

Ms Nosybella: How did you... break bad habits?

Ms Nosybella is back, asking all the questions I ever wanted to know about other people but wasn't drunk enough to ask.

This week I'm wondering if you've successfully stopped doing something that you used to love doing or want to stop doing something that you do right now. Habits. Erksome things.

Three habits I've broken and how:

1. Smoking. See, I wasn't always the clean-living, virtuous type you see before you now. Pack a day of Peter Styvies and during my wanky uni days I even rolled my own Port Royals. Nice. I stopped for a year when I went overseas. A whole year and then, wham, back in Ciggieville. Let's face it, Europe is a hard place for ex-smokers.  Only 50 people on the whole continent are non-smokers . 

The next time I seriously tried to stop (as opposed to giving up for about 2 hours here and there or foregoing lighting up at 8am for a week or two) was when I was pregnant with my first baby. That was seven years ago and I've had about 10 cigarettes in all those years. I just don't want to be a smoking mum.

2. Never exercising. For years I told myself that running around chasing a busy, busy life was plenty of exercise. And cleaning the house is a workout, right? But one day I just left my house and went for a run. Well, a shuffle more like. I don't know why I did it but I do know that it felt really good. Go on, puff yourself out a little and make your muscles burn a little a few times a week and I promise you're going to feel good about yourself. It's a mental thing.

3. Diet Coke. I'm two weeks clean after chugging down 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 cans of diet coke every day. Somehow drinking that much of the black stuff seems even dirtier than the smoking. I am drinking copious cups of green tea in exchange. So far, so good. But I really, really miss it so it's going to be a bumpy ride.

And a habit that I would love to break but am so far unsuccessful:

Overeating fats and sugars. My colleague at work, who is a personal trainer and Fitness First instructor in his spare time (annoyingly healthy and one of the reasons I fake liking Gaga) is helping me with this one. "Don't eat your feelings, Maxabella!" he calls whenever I express a desire to clean out Darrell Lea. I kinda want to slap him senseless when he does it, but I'm sort of grateful too. I'm the Miss Universe of Self-Delusion when it comes to training my eating habits. I mean, I can eat half a block of Whittakers watching The Biggest Loser. I just mustn't want it enough... I've actually started a sister blog to Maxabella to try and explore these issues.


Your turn now... any habits you've squashed or would like to?


I really, really want to know...

Things I learnt this week including how to raise a graffiti artist

I've just had one of those weeks that fly by in a haze of 'what tha?' Out of that haze, comes my learnings for the week that was...

1. No matter how meticulously you plan, something will always go wrong.

2. Learning to write letters correctly is easier on a vertical surface. Let your children practice with their index finger on frosted morning windows or in the shower after wiping shaving foam on the glass. It's loads of fun and it's easier to see the way they are forming the letters and help them get it right (especially if they are writing on your bedroom window on Sunday morning and you are still conveniently lying in bed.) Please note, I take no responsibility if your cherub runs with this idea and starts tagging your neighbourhood.

3. A colonoscopy is performed while the patient lies on their left side.

4. The lyrics to Nancy Sinatra's Sugar Town begin "I got some troubles but they won't last / I'm gonna lay right down here in the grass / And pretty soon all my troubles will pass / 'cause I'm in shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo / Shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town." Or, if you're Cappers, "shoe-shoe, shoe-shoe, shoe-shoe Booger down."

An aside: this reminds me of The Badoo earlier in the week. She had a little something on her nose which I reached over to brush off. She said "No, I get it" and promptly stuck the finger in, pulled out a glob of snot and handed it to me. Ah, The Badoo.

5. "Childhood is that wonderful time of life when all you need to do to lose weight is take a bath." Richard Zera. I know this quotable quote isn't strictly a learning, but I just love it.

6. OCD* affects 2 to 3 per cent of people in Australia at some time in their lives.

7. Roses not only need a sunny spot and lots of food, they need air flow to survive. This is why my roses never really 'took off' (read: dropped all their leaves, glared accusingly at me and started to shrivel.) Darren, our new gardener (that sounds so Maxabella of the Manor - really, he's popping in for a few hours each month because I have no idea what I'm doing despite telling everyone I meet that I love gardening and am an excellent gardener) has moved the roses to a new airflowy spot. I'll keep you posted.

8. If you break one of the ten commandments you need to give God a lamb. A "nice, big, juicy lamb." (Thank you, Maxi-Taxi)

9. Most kitchens have more germs on the counter tops than in the average toilet. This is due to failure to sanitise the dish rag after every clean, resulting in the spreading of harmful bacteria from one end of the kitchen to the other. You can sanitise the dish rag either by using disinfectant or by wetting it and microwaving it on high for two minutes. Allow to cool before picking it up (the article didn't actually say that, but I thought I should add it after an incident that occurred in Maxabellaland on Tuesday evening at approximately 8 o'clock.)

10. If you don't like clutter, don't buy it in the first place.


* Disclaimer: this learning is in no way related to my own bed leaping antics or other random behaviours as confessed shared by commenters on my post earlier in the week. However, if at any time you feel you need help, please go here. We won't look.

[Image by Banksy]

Things I learned this week including the evils of yoghurt

This week has brought a few surprise learnings. And, frankly, for some I really should have known better!

1. Online shopping combined with PayPal will bring your finances asunder. It's just too easy to spend money in the grown-up version of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

2. Handy tin, but Moxie tampons are almost impossible to unwrap. Not sure what one is supposed to do with an unwrappable tampon, but you'll be pleased to know that I didn't find out.

3. Apparently a box of tampons needs its own website these days. Including a page outlining 'the collection'.

4. Nits prefer to hang out around the ears and at the nape of the neck. Who knew?

5. Megan Morton does not seem to be embarassed about the fact that she calls herself a 'house whisperer'.

6. Formspring.me is a site where you're asked random questions and you can share your answers. I have no idea what you would actually do with it, but this is what I learned.

7. Week 7, Term 2, Year Kindergarten: Maxi-Taxi isn't 'applying the required amount of effort to his studies'. Parent -Teacher interview has been set up for next Friday to 'discuss strategy'. Oh, Maxi-Taxi.

8. You can't return something at Myer without a receipt. You can 'exchange for something of the same value' but you can't just get your money back. I think I kinda knew this, but I never keep receipts that aren't for tax. I wish I was one of those people that keeps receipts that aren't for tax, but I'm not.

9. A tub of Ski Delite Berry Basket Yoghurt has 41% of an adult's daily ration of sugar. 41%! My teeth nearly fell out of my head on the spot. I let my kids eat that stuff in healthy snack proportions!! I'm on the prowl for a lower sugar version (that doesn't contain 900 sweetner numbers and doesn't taste so yoghurt-tart that little mouths pucker). Do you think I can find one?

10. When goats give birth it's called 'kidding'. That's a joke, right?

Did you learn anything new this week?

The nitmare

Maxi-Taxi brought a new ecosystem home with him from school yesterday. I don't know how we did it, but one Tsunami or another has been in daycare since 2005 and we've been completely nit-free. Term 2 of big school and it's combs at the ready.

I couldn't believe how quickly they'd set up camp. I noticed him scratching a little before bed on Tuesday night, toured the head with a torch and found absolutely nothing. By Wednesday afternoon, there were 7 actual specimens and about 132,000 eggs.I drowned him in Pantene dry/damaged conditioner and spent 2 hours with the comb, the nails and the wriggling child, bannishing the clingy little buggers one strand at a time.

This morning he insisted that we visit the principal's office to let him know about the nits. I asked him why we needed to tell Mr Smith and he said "Mr Sniff knows everything at school. He needs to know about this."

I humoured him because I really doubted that Mr Sniff would be in his office at 8am on a Thursday. But in there he was. Maxi-Taxi marched in, bold as brass and boomed "Mr Sniff, the nits are on the loose!" Mr Sniff cracked up. He's a terrific principal.

So, beware. The nits are on the loose. And frankly, I have PTSS from the whole encounter. Can't stop scratching. Scratch, scratch. Bet you're scratching too, right?

It's not about the drive

I'm off on an adventure. Alone. For four days and four nights.

Thanks to the enormous generosity of always-supportive LOML, I'll be driving down the east coast of NSW, then across to Daylesford in Victoria and back up to Sydney via Bendigo. It's a big drive and it may change en-route, but to be honest, it doesn't matter where I go, just that I go. Alone.

There have been two schools of opinion on this one. First there is the 'oh my god, I'm so jealous, I wish I was doing that' school. They get that it's not about the drive. It's about the opportunity to do what I want, when I want and for as long as I want.  If you ask me, when you're a wife and a mumma and at the end of some days you've done so much talking in your work and real life that you are literally all talked out, being alone is the ultimate luxury.

Then there's the 'don't you want to take a friend?' school.

Now, I'm a social creature, don't get me wrong. I come alive in large groups of people and I love to talk and talk and talk. Love sharing a story, having a cuddle, showing off, listening to a problem, debating the universe and sorting out just exactly what needs to be done about that Shari-Lea.

But I really, really don't want to take a friend.

Cheers to thinking uninterrupted thoughts and spur of the moment stop offs. To arrivals and departures whenever it suits me. To suddenly taking a left hand turn to see what's down the road.  To listening to the music that I want to listen to or to no music at all. To staying a bit too long at a gallery or lingering in a bookstore.

Cheers to the beauty of solitude.

[Image: photo-alchemy.co.uk]

Things I learned this week including getting lost

1. If you urgently need to see your doctor you need to book the appointment approximately 3 weeks in advance.

2. A binding contract can be defeated in court if the way you acted whilst signing the contract was contrary to what was outlined in the contract.

3. You shouldn't eat food, even if it's healthy, while crossing the road if you want to be safe (this from Cappers who was visited by Healthy Harold at daycare).

4. Even if you haven't seen a person for decades, if they die you will still feel the loss in your day to day life. (Vale Val.)

5. Sticking it out with the TV show Lost for the past six years - even though you've hated it with a passion for at least 2 of those 6 years- will not pay off in the end.

6. Albert Einstein died of a brain aneurysm, which seems kind of fitting.

7. Peas do not taste good because they look like alien eyes (thank you Maxi-Taxi).

8. Returning your child to pull-ups at night if they've wet the bed for an entire month is a very good idea.

9. It's too late in the year to plant Hyacinth bulbs that haven't been in the fridge (I planted them anyway).

10. Copyscape is a website that helps you find copies of work from your website across the web. So if you're a writer and someone is plagiarising your stuff, you can find out about it.

[Image: oreganlive.com]

When hormones make life decisions

I work for a large corporate in a reasonably full-on role. When I was pregnant with my third child I went through a frenzied, hormone-charged turn-around that went something like this...


I'm having another baby. My other babies are still babies. I'll have three babies. How can I possibly have three babies and work in the city in a 'big job'? They'll make me put the job first and then the three babies will suffer. My kids will be those kids with really cool stuff because their parents are trying to make up for the fact that they hardly know them. I used to envy those kids when I was a kid, but now I know that it's wrong wrong wrong. And what happens in the school holidays - ALL those school holidays - when the babies grow into bigger babies? Where will they go? For godsake, who will love them for 12 weeks of holiday time?

So, I decided to become a school teacher.

Yes. Throw away 15 years of successfully working in advertising - marketing and become a high-school English - Drama teacher (at least I would still have the hyphen...) earning approximately one third of the salary. But it seemed the only solution to the 3 kids / 3 o'clock pick ups / 12 weeks of school holidays dilemma that I faced.

I enrolled and did my first two semesters, managing uni, a 4 day a week job, the pregnancy and 2 under 3.  I handed in my 3 essays and 1 report 2 days before giving birth and did my half-yearly exams 8 days post-CS.

And then I woke up.

I never went back to uni and to this day I have NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING.

Frankly, in hindsight, I'm surprised they let us operate heavy machinery whilst pregnant. But understand that when I was pregnant it seemed like the most logical, sane thing in the world. I temporarily forgot that millions of women before me and millions of women after me manage the balance of work and family and that I can be one of those women too.

While pregnant, I forgot that I'm the sort of mum who will always, always put her children first and things would be much the same with three as they were with two. A little bit of give and take, but all of the time my kids are my number one priority and work understands that. I might not spend the amount of time with my children that other mothers do, but I'm comfortable that their lives are balanced, safe,  interesting and, most of all, uber-loving. They are happy little people.

I learnt very early on to park my work-ego at the door each day and just get on with the job so I can get home to my real life.  And that's a decision I would make even while pregnant.

[Image: Frank Maiorana]

Moooooooooooly good hair

I have hair that's favourably classed as 'dry' but really should be called 'unruly'. It's thick and kinky-curled and frizzcityrama. After having the children, things became even more dry, kinky and frizzy and I pretty much resigned myself to having crazy hair for life. I used to think that the best I could hope for was that if I worked it with a good (read: pricey) shampoo, conditioned it twice and slapped in loads of product it could look... passable.

But that all changed when I found the cow.

A friend put me onto Moo Goo products to help me combat the psoriasis that I have on the sole of one foot and in my hairline. So I started using the products because, frankly, when you suffer from psoriasis, you'll try pretty much anything (ever smelt Coal Tar?).

 [Image: Moo Goo]

Instant success. The psoriasis has improved immensely and so has the hair. In fact, the hair is so improved that I swear I will never use any other product ever again. Best of all, Moo Goo products are so natural and chemical-free that I started using the products in the children's baths and hair and they look so shiny and glossy that it brings a tear to the eye.

If you have dry hair or damaged hair, or even if you have normal hair, check them out!