Too hot, too cold

I was out at the pub the other night and they had the heater inside cranked up to 40 degrees and a fire going. Man, it was stifling in there. A couple of us elected to take our chances in the garden.

Outside it was freezing, despite the outdoor heaters and the warmth from a hundred lit-ciggies. But I was much happier there than being closeted inside a too-warm room.

I much prefer to be too cold than too hot.*

How about you?

* I assure you this post is not related to yesterday's post.

[Image from here]

Pucker up

I need to know if I've been embarrassing myself totally for years and years and years.

I'm a bit of a kisser. I like to do the hello-kissy-kiss-kiss thing when it's someone I know reasonably well. It's nice. See, that's me in the picture above saying 'oh, hello, nice to make your acquaintance.' Ha! Not really, we're talking a little peck at most. Occasionally it's a double-job as I'm influenced by the Italians, but generally it's a fleeting peck.

But when I do the kiss, I do make actual lip to cheek contact.

Someone has mentioned that this is majorly embarrassing and you're supposed to kiss the air next to the cheek, not the cheek itself.

Who knew?

Anyway, I tried out  the air-kiss and I felt like a total air-head kissing into space like that with the little 'mwah' sound. Man, what an idiot. So I went back to making actual cheek contact.

Now, what I need to know is: is this social suicide?

Am I turning what is meant to be a warm, welcoming thing into a horrifying

experience for all I make overly-intimate contact with?

Does anyone else out there make contact?

[Image found here]

Me interviewing Me

If I had to offer three pieces of advice to a girl just reaching adulthood, what would I tell them?*

This question kept me awake last night. Me interviewing Me often keeps me up and busy in the middle of the night. Do you do that too? Ask yourself questions as if you were being interviewed and the masses were hanging on your every word over their morning cuppa? Hmmmm, perhaps that's just me...

In particular, I used to be at my most witty and charming when being questioned for the 'Upfront' section of the Good Weekend and was gutted when they removed that section during one of their thoughtless makeovers. They've replaced it with 'You Do What?', which examines all the fascinating jobs lucky ducks get to do (like run Lord Howe Island) while the rest of us get to answer "yeah, I sit around on my fat arse all day typing acronyms into a computer and wondering why my life has no meaning." Hmmmm, perhaps that's also just me...

Anyway, in the spirit of Me interviewing Me, I like to revisit that old Upfront column from time to time and thought I'd share my latest (most witty and charming) answers with you. Look away now if you have a low tolerance for boredom.

My earliest memory is... driving from the Territory to Far North Queensland for Christmas. My little sister is still a baby in her moses basket on the seat between Mum and Dad upfront. My older sister and I are sitting in the back of the station wagon on a mattress, watching the brown land whizz by.

My school report usually said... "Easily distracted". Probably due to the fact that I was interviewing myself in class constantly.

My first relationship... was all in my head. Thank god.

I don't like talking about... people's dreams. If you think this is boring, imagine if I'd started this post with 'last night I dreamed I was a...'

My most treasured possession is... my creativity. Is that a possession? Probably not. Okay, I'd say my children's early artworks.

My father always told me... that Maths was logical. Such lies.

In the movie of my life, I'd be played by... some poor B-list smuck who thought the gig would be more interesting than waitering. How wrong she was.

I wish I had... the ability to hear through walls without using a glass. Not that I'd know if the glass trick works, of course. 

I wish I hadn't... eaten approximately 10,000 kilos of chocolate over my lifetime. As soon as it's swallowed, the memory is gone. It's like getting fat for nothing.**

My most humiliating moment was... probably unfolding as soon as I hit 'Publish' on this post.

My guiltiest pleasure is... see 'I wish I hadn't' above.

My last meal would be... savoured. Or probably just wolfed down like a starving mongrel dog like all my other meals, old habits and all that. Regardless, I'd be eating anything that I didn't have to cook myself.

Can you believe we're only half-way down the Upfront list? I think I'll save the other half for another post, but in the meantime, dare you to answer the same questions! Copy and paste these questions in the comment box:

My earliest memory is... 

My school report usually said...

My first relationship...

I don't like talking about... 

My most treasured possession is... 

My father always told me... 

In the movie of my life, I'd be played by... 

I wish I had...

I wish I hadn't...

My most humiliating moment was...

My guiltiest pleasure is...

My last meal would be... 

And answer away! Or do your own post and pop the URL into the comments so I can go and check out your interview.

Me interviewing Me is really rather fun! Promise!

* Today I would say: being alone is different to being lonely, get to know yourself; Marry the man who makes you feel single; Be grateful for the little things because that's where happiness can be found. But tomorrow... well, I'll have to think about that tonight!

** With kudos to my Mum, for this is her favourite expression. She rates many things as 'getting fat for nothing' - dark chocolate, blue cheese and pasta carbonara among them.

[Image found here]

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]

______________________________________________________________________________________

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

---------------------------------

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

My own...

... My sister's...

...and Down that Little Lane's.

Have fun! x

Too-close encounters

How are you with mice? Cockroaches? Rats? Louse? Ants? Moths? Fleas? Ticks? Snakes? Spiders?

I ask because in the three plus years we've lived where we live, I've encountered every single one of these pests in my house. Lots and lots of wildlife and that's not even counting the cockatoos, bandicoots, possums and echidnas who are threatening to reclaim our yard for the bush.

I'm a total wimp when it comes to too-close-for-my-liking encounters. I see so much as a cockroach and I can tell you my shrieking gives those pesky cockatoos a run for their money.

But nothing, nothing compares to a funnel-web running over your daughter's hand.

Who knows what a funnel-web was doing hanging around above ground in Winter? But there it was, next to the front verandah, sunning itself on a rock like a black melanoma. Cappers was the one who saw it. She thought it was "one of Maxi's toy spiders" and bent down to pick it up. You talk and you talk and you talk to your children about not touching anything, not sticking fingers in holes or anywhere they can't see them, leaving things well alone. All forgotten in a moment.

The funnel-web leapt into action, stumbled across her hand menacingly before falling unceremoniously off the rock where it lay stunned on the ground below. Clearly this was a funnel-web still mostly in hibernation, drowsy and ineffectual. But, who knew?

We captured it in a jar and even now as I look at it I shudder. Pitch black, ugly, killer. A moment in time that nearly changed time completely.

 Do you live in the bush or visit it often?

Have you had a close encounter with Australia's deadly wildlife?

[Image by Ryoko Yagi]

The reality of TV

I've never been a huge television watcher. We didn't have a lot of access when we were kids (there was only one black and white station, after all) and it was never really an issue. In my late teens and early twenties, my flatmates and I didn't even have a television (we used to go to the Hopetoun to watch Melrose Place on Tuesdays and that was it for the week!).

These days I watch a few shows here and there. Grey's Anatomy hooked me in and even though it got really dumb and unfunny at least four years ago, I still watch it and try to smile (although the other night when they all burst into song in the ICU for some inexplicable reason, that was very, very hard to do). Same goes for Survivor - I've been an avid viewer for ten years and I know the show so well I could easily be Jeff's understudy. I also tune in religiously to So You Think You Can Dance and am a confirmed Gleek (although I only watch it for Sue Sylvester's lines and Puckerman's, well, lines). Every now and then I watch Dr Phil at work because Dr Phil is my guru and he's way more interesting than work. And sometimes I catch Spicks and Specks because I have a girl-crush on Myf. And I find myself watching How I Met Your Mother with remarkable regularity considering I don't actually watch that show.

There are plenty of other shows on television that I'm sure are 'must sees'. And there are many conversations that I'm instantly tuned out of because no, I didn't watch Packed to the Rafters / Law and Order / Sex and the City / Ally McBeal / The Bill / Insert 'Must See' Show last night.

I could say that I don't have the time, but I always think you make the time for the things you like. When it all comes down to it, television isn't really that much different to a good book - you get a bit lost in another world for a little while. Beyond the 'learning to read' stage, I don't think TV is any more passive an activity than reading, especially as it's rare for me to 'challenge' myself with a great work of literature these days - most of what I pick up is crime / thriller paperback stuff and I'm okay with that. But getting hooked on a television show is a little bit like watching someone else live your best life for you*. Only their life is so much more interesting and exciting than yours. So maybe with TV, I just can't handle the feeling of inadequacy?

But what show do you think I'm really missing out on?

What's your favourite?

* Yeah, okay, so maybe I watch Oprah from time to time too...

[Image via weheartit]

Meet Dolly and Other Dolly

When it comes to naming their dolls and softies, my children are... lacking. Badoo calls all her dolls "Dolly" and most of her softies are also called "Dolly". The new doll she recently got for her birthday is called "Other Dolly".

She is more creative with naming every day objects, however and we still can't figure out exactly when she started refering to blankets as "pinkies" and why all blankets are called that. She has her very favourite stripey, cotton "pinky" which she likes to sleep with, but you can use a "substitute pinky" if "real pinky" is for some reason lost or unavailable and she can handle it. Just.

Cappers changes the names of her dollies reguarly. She takes ages to decide what to call them and then unleashes a torrent of names that are quickly forgotten and made up again later. So who knows what "Butterfly Butterfly Princess Party Dress" the pink bear will be called in a day or so. I do know that "Sparkle Carla Rainbow Pop" is now known only as "Carla", making it difficult to explain to people why my daughter's favourite doll is named after the bairmaid in Cheers.

Maxi-Taxi used to refer to all things by the most obvious thing about them. So we have a bat called "Batty" and an elephant called "Ellie" and a turtle called "Burtle" (but only because he thought all turtles were burtles at the time). The mouse is called "Mousey" and the Lion is called "Liony" and, well... you get the idea.

We're planning to get chickens in the next month or so. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of "Silky", "Fluffy" and "Benjamin". Yes, Benjamin the chicken. Which seems like a departure from our usual naming conventions, but I believe the child was watching Ben 10 at the time so not such a departure after all. I'm sure the chickens will be so overjoyed to find themselves let loose in their palatial chicken coop that LOML is building* that they won't mind their uninspiring names one bit.

How do you go with naming things at your place?

* LOML is building his first ever thing from scratch. It's very exciting. While I have every faith that he will deliver, I'm particularly pleased that he is unleashing his new found carpentery skills on a home for poultry and not for... you know, human habitation.

[Image from birdybrain.com]

Click Clack

There is just one skill that I have that I want to pass on to my children*.

Typing.

Back when I was a junior in an advertising agency they paid for me to do a speed touch-typing course. Which I hated. Mostly because I suspected they had already written me off as a really shite copywriter and were funneling me into the typing pool.

But I was wrong.

Even in 1990, back in the dark ages before the internet or email was even a twinkle in a fax's i, those good folk seemed to know that typing skills were going to come in really, really handy no matter where my career led me.

They were so bloody right they were almost left.

To this day my 100+ WPM (with about 6% accuracy, but let's not go there) touch typing skills have been the backbone of everything I've accomplished. Whether it was hammering out a 7,500 word essay through the night before a due date because, yes, I'm that big a procrastinator; or racing against a deadline at work to get an important email out the door whilst simultaneously watching Oprah on the flatscreen; or visiting and saying hello to over 100 blogs in the space of about 2 hours all up the other day; my speedy gonzales typing has always seen me through.

I'm fully intending to enrol those Tsunamis of mine in a touch typing course as soon as they can... ah, write. Soon we'll probably all be using that (very long promised) voice recognition typing thingy anyway, but I don't care. A typing course will always be an important investment in their future. They won't look back. They'll be so 99.9% accurate they won't need to!

How fast do you type? 

* Oh, okay, that's probably selling myself a bit short but then again...


[I found this image here  ages ago but the credit no longer clicks through...]

Putting those balls down

No, this isn't a man-hating post (har, har, I crack myself up... I hope you read my title, otherwise I'll just be looking like a total nutter right about now... maybe still?) ANYWAY.

No, this is a post about putting down the 'juggling balls' of motherhood. I hate to tell you this, but I'm SO sick of that expression that I just want to scream. The hysteria-inducing media talks about the 'juggle' of motherhood, my friends talk about 'keeping all the balls in the air', my friendly bloggers blog about 'dropping the balls'... if we stepped back and took a good look at our society right now, you'd think that mothers belonged in the circus.

Ask any real juggler and they'll tell you that juggling is lots and lots of fun but also the most stressful thing they'll ever do. Well, I only know one actual juggler, and that's what he said. "Juggling more than three balls is like trying to give 100% concentration to more than one thing at the same time," he said. "Yes, I know, that's impossible, but somehow you just make it work. But it's beyond stressful trying to focus on one ball while you're looking at another. The satisfaction of 'the catch' is solid, but gone in an instant. You catch, you feel the thud, then you throw it straight back in the air again."

"The satisfaction of the catch is solid, but gone in an instant" - how many of us can relate to that? We are only barely finished with one accomplishment before we're moving quickly onto the next. Our lives become moments of fleeting satisfaction, barely acknowledged.

Is it just me who thinks 'No freaking way. That's not how I want to live.'

If you feel like your life is a constant juggle, I think you need to put down the balls for an evening and really take stock of what you're doing with your life. While those balls are on the ground, you could give yourself a nice little foot massage with them while you think about things like:

What am I doing that doesn't really need doing?
What am I doing that I could be more efficient at?
What am I doing that someone else could be doing?
What do I need to do to make that happen?

I did this task many, many years ago. I was a juggler. I felt out of control. I had just gone back to work (in a new job) after my maternity leave with Cappers. I was terrified of all I needed to do and in a state of constant momentum. I didn't feel capable of being a wife, a mother of two under 2 who didn't want to sleep, a friend, a boss, a colleague, a daughter, a sister, an aunt and CEO of my own messy house. I felt physically sick from being wired on adrenalin 24/7.

I didn't make many changes. I'm still all those things, but I made small changes that helped me get a handle on it all. I still do those things today.

Things like not going to every social occasion I am invited to. Maybe not even going to any if I'd rather be at home doing something quiet with my family. Things like watching only one or two television shows a week instead of 4 or 5. Things like reading less books so I have a bit of time for blogging. Like building up a support network of people - both paid and friend - that works like a dream. Like hiring a gardener to help me keep on top of a space that's important to me. And doing my own cleaning because if I go hard for a couple of hours, that's a clean house and a work-out right there. Not reading silly women's magazines (okay, sometimes, but not always!); not seeking a promotion at work so I can contain my obligations there; not going on time-sucky and sometimes just plain sucky Facebook; spending as much time as I can outside; working really hard to not feel guilty about any of my choices if I know I did the best I could at the time.

The number one change I made, though, was the decision to not compare myself to what anyone else was doing. I don't want to keep up with those over-indulged, vacuous, aggressive Joneses any more. They can live the way they want to live, and I'll just be doing my thing over here.

You've got to let some of it go, because if you're living in a constant state of stress, something has to give. You can't sustain it. If your body manages to withstand the constant pressure, your mind certainly won't. You won't be happy, you can't be happy if you're constantly stressed to the max. When you're sitting there, taking stock, think about how many of those balls are weighted with other people's expectations. How many are ones you juggle to please others or to maintain a standard. They're probably the first ones you can get rid of.

This is your life, not a circus show. So, please, put down the balls.

Are you a juggler? Does it make you happy? 

What could you change in your life to make things easier?

[Image by toypincher]

Let's talk about toilet paper

From secretly appreciating those odd little toilet paper arrows in hotel rooms, to being faintly nauseated by the sight of a used roll*, I've always been a little bit weird about the humble toilet roll. The paper has to go over the top of the roll, it has to be white, I'm (shhhh) just not that into the recycled stuff and for the love of god, don't call it 't.p.'. In addition, I cannot enter into discussions about folding and scrunching... I just can't. And, please, take your patterns elsewhere, I cannot look.

In Africa and the Middle East and most of Asia, toilet rolls are few and far between. To be honest, those Italians aren't that big on keeping the toilet well stocked either. In all these places, I went, I saw, I walked around with an entire toilet roll in my pocket, just in case. I did. Big pockets.

99% of the time, wherever I am, I am the one to change the toilet roll. Doing a roll changeover appears to be my life's work and I'm no shirker. Nothing riles me more than seeing two mangy squares still attached to an otherwise empty roll. Seriously, what is that? Is toilet paper so laborious to change that we have to fake a full roll, just to get out of changing it? The two-sheets-left act is just so calculated, so stingy. It says a lot about a person... but what, I'm not exactly sure.

Too much?
Where do you stand (sit) on toilet paper? White? Patterned? Recycled? 

Any odd little habits you'd like to share?

* Even used rolls used as beautifully as in the Yuken Teruya artwork pictured here. Even them!

[Toilet roll tree by Yuken Teruya]

The Liary

Whenever someone learns that I have a blog they say, "oh, you must keep a diary too, huh?"  Do you get that too? Let me see. Writing one's heart's desires confidentially versus broadcasting useless opinions to the world? Same-same?

The truth is, I'm a hopeless diary keeper. I just don't trust myself to be the only reader of my innermost thoughts. When unchecked by others, I lie, I cheat, I steal other people's good stuff. I've done it before. I was given a diary when I was an early teen and it had the date stamped on every page. The pressure. By the time I got the diary it was already mid-Feb so what was I going to do with all those blank date-stamped pages?

I made up a life and pretended that it was mine, that's what. Sadly, this was no outlandishly crazy and wonderful existence. Not for me rides on wild ponies in the desert and cocktails at dawn... no, I was much more inclined to pretend that I had blonde hair, was short and petitie, good at maths and played the guitar. A big Sweet Dreams-style yawn, but no less a lie for its dullness.

My sister called this journal The Liary.

The truth is (and this is the truth, trust me), I did this sort of thing for real when I was in my very early twenties and a drunken night at a bar turned me into a lie-whore who pretended to be a med student at uni because I was embarrassed that I was actually just a waitress at a function centre at the time. I kept up the lie for months. I don't even know why it was so important to me that people thought I was a brainiac rather than just a maniac. I made up a boyfriend who was a model too... so it was obviously important at the time that not only was I a smart one, I was also hot enough to attract a dumb boyfriend.

I kept a journal during those ill-fated months too. It was Liary The Sequel because embarrassingly I even wrote to myself that I was a med-student with hot boyfriend. For shame. I clearly remember the desperation to be different, to be other than myself, that drove me to lie like this. I think most teenagers / young adults have been there. I try always to remember what that self-loathing, despairing feeling was like and consequently I have always been indulgent with both my time for and manners towards angst-ridden teens.

One of my great life lessons towards accepting myself for just being me was when it all went pear-shaped and I had to explain to some of my dearest friends just why I had made this stupid stuff up. At the time I had no explanation (but see above, perceptive reasoning kicked in later). Most importantly, my friends were at a loss to explain it also. They were shocked beyond belief. But not for the reasons I dreaded. It wasn't the fact that I had lied to their faces that shocked them so much, it was that they couldn't believe that I didn't realise that I was good enough without the lies. I was good enough.

Like I said, a huge life lesson and one that has kept me truthful and grounded ever since. I've never lied with quite such bravado again. Just a little white one here and there. To stop the whining or to save face. Ironically.

Phew. Lying is hard to admit to. Have you always been truthful?

Do you think lies like these matter? What's the difference between a 'white' lie and a whopper?

___________________________________________

Don't forget to enter my Planning with Kids and Kikki K giveaway.
Click here to enter. Entries close Friday!

[Image found here]

Wearing sheep's pyjamas

Okaaaaay then. I've got to get it out.

I'm judgey.

I know it's the worst possible offence of all possible worst offences, but I do judge others. Inwardly.

I wouldn't dream of being unsupportive enough to criticise someone outright, so I will nod and smile and say nothing. But inwardly...

Yesterday, for instance, I looked after six children for the day (my three plus three others). The oldest child was eight. We had a great day, but you can imagine the limp state I was in when five o'clock pick up time rolled around.

And rolled straight on by.

It was nearer to six by the time the first parent arrived to pick up her two (she had called to apologise at ten to five so all was well) and closer to seven thirty by the time the Third Child was collected by his. By then Third Child was fed and bathed and wearing a pair of Max-pyjamas, ready for bed along with the Tsunamis. Third Child thought this was just fantastic fun and, of course, at no time did I let on to him that his Mum was hours past pick-up time. In truth I had to hide my anxiety because there was absolutely no contact from his mother and no answer on her mobile despite my many calls and one or two (okay, four) texts.

I was dragging out the sofa bed when Third Child's mum finally arrived. She was apologetic (but not apologetic enough). She simply said "sorry I'm late, you know how it is."

I said: "don't worry, it happens, he's been a good boy all day."

I thought: how what is? Being two and half hours late to collect your boy without contact or explanation? No, actually, I really don't know how that is.

My main point of judgement, however, was that at no time did she say anything whatsoever to her freshly-scrubbed and proud pyjama-wearing son, apart from "Get your shoes, we're in a hurry." Not a "How was your day, honey?" or an "I've missed you all day, what did you get up to?" or even a "Look at you in your friend's pyjamas!"... nothing.

See, I'm judgey. I judge all the time and this is just one example. It's by no means a clean finger that I'm pointing with but sometimes I'm just not interested in putting my "she probably had a rough day and isn't usually like this" cap on. I'm not interested in pulling on my "not until you've walked in her shoes" shoes either. I'm not even interested in wearing my "whatever works for her and her family" pants for this one either.

See? Judgey.

I'm not going to pretend that I don't do it.

I think everyone does it, but we don't talk about it because ironically we're afraid that other people will judge us for it. 

So, we say "don't worry, it happens, he's been a good boy all day."

[Image from bluquote - I take no responsibility for the terrible grammar!]

Please spam me, I love you too

Talk me through spam. Who writes it? Why? What do they hope to get out of it?

I imagine that if it was a solid marketing message spammed onto carefully targeted blogs... well, it would still piss me off royally, but at least I could understand it. There's always someone who buys that stuff thereby opening the floodgates.

But, really, I don't want to BOYCOTT AMERICAN WOMEN, despite the fact that you've asked me to about 128 times now. Nor am I particularly fond of your broken-English promise to love my blog for all iturnity. And, please, I'm just not that into obscure Russian invitations to... er, what exactly?

Where do you come from? I don't understand.

Don't worry, I'm in no danger of turning back on my word verification. I probably get about six spams a day and they are no trouble to delete. But, ooooooooh, ANOTHER scrouge on the world that I have to almost-read so I know that I don't want to read it. Like a lot of advertising (ssssshhhhh... I didn't just say that... you know I LOVE my advertising industry... but only the really good, clever, entertaining stuff... and I still don't want to buy anything!)

Have you ever responded to an unsolicited email? 

Have you ever bought something from a random telemarketer?

Do you think charities should be allowed to call you even when companies can't? (Just thought I'd throw that one in there!!!)

[Image via Buzzfeed]

'Cos we are living in a technical world

So, last week a colleague asked me without a trace of irony if I could recommend some age-appropriate apps for her one year old. She did.

It's got me thinking: when is technology itself age-appropriate?

While outwardly I may be a complete wanker with a wireless tv and stereo set-up where I download movies* onto one of my two laptops** and watch them on my taking-over-the-house sized plasma while setting the TIVO from either my BlackBerry or my iPhone***, deep down inside I am a total Luddite.

Hear me out.

I didn't mean to get addicted to technology. I can think of a hundred more interesting things I'd rather be doing than watching tv or playing some mindless game on my phone****. For that reason, I don't believe in television for the under 2s (although I admit that this failed miserably for The Badoo who has been tuned in since birth due to her two siblings). I certainly don't believe in computers and apps for the juniorburgers - in fact I think school age is about the age that games and google should appear.

Which is what I really do believe, but is not what happened at our place.

In this day and age there's a fear that if your child isn't unwired from birth, she's missing out. It's almost as if being able to use technology has become a developmental milestone. I was never one for propping the Tsunamis in front of the giggle box and to this day they are not huge tele watchers, but I have failed in all other aspects.

I think I freaked out when Maxi-Taxi was three and thought the only mouse in existence squeaked and terrified his mumma. Within the week he was googling Diego and by the end of the month he was busy searching for the Chipmunks on Youtube. These days all three Tsunamis know how to use the iPhone and each one tends to animals in a Tap Zoo thingy that I honestly don't have a clue about. Technology for the under tens is LOML's domain.

There's something really wrong about that. But I'm not sure what. Is this just a generational reaction that I'm having? I think our grandmother's felt the same way about television and their mothers probably thought that radio was going to corrupt us all. And they were right, of course...

What do you think about technology and the youngsters? What age is the 'right' age? Does it worry you when you see kids in nappies glued to their parent's smartphone?

* Yeah, okay, so LOML does all the techy bits.
** Work and home.
*** Seriously. What am I like? I can't give up the BlackBerry email and I can't give up the iPhone apps.
**** But only one thing I'd rather be doing than blogging.


[Image by pyxelated]

You've come a long way, Bunsen

Today is Robert Bunsen's 200th Birthday.

He is the chemist who invented the bunsen burner which lead to the invention of the Bialetti stove-top coffee maker, so as far as LOML’s concerned he is the best inventor ever.

But that’s not why I noticed his birthday.

We all have a Mean Girls story from our school days. Mine happens to be a Mean Boys story, but we all know how these things play out. Group of kids makes life a misery for single kid for reasons known and unknown to themselves only.

I guess being nicknamed Bunsen and having a large group of boys call out ‘heeeeey BUUUNNNSEEEN’ every single time you walked past them isn’t the end of the world. I’ll take that any day of the week over so much of the teenage warfare a lot of kids endure.

But still.

Ground-opening humiliation for a teenager desperately wanting to fit in, even if the boys only came up to my armpit and, like all teenage boys, had absolutely nothing to offer. On and on and on it went. I went from laughing it off with a sweep of my offensive tresses, to attempting to ignore it, to only ever walking in the centre of a gang of girls, to going miles out of my way to avoid them altogether.

The burden of the peer group.

You know, once those boys stopped being a peer group, many turned out to be very nice indeed. I was oddly the only girl invited to every single one of those boys’ 21st birthday parties. I went along to a couple. To them it was ‘hey old mate!’ and I realised that as BUUUUNNNSSEEEEEN I was always a part of their gang; their quirky little mate who took teasing on the chin. They were boys and that’s just what boys do. Shudder.

The mystery of the peer group.

That’s what Robert Bunsen means to me. Happy birthday, clever man.

Were you picked on as a child? Do you think that Bunsen was bullied? What's the line between teasing and bullying? Is there one?

[Image by giac1061]

And on and on and on she goes

Silence is one of the greatest arts of conversation - Cicero

Yep, still talking.


I’m a babbler, a prattler, a discloser, a jabberer. I can’t stop talking. On and on and on I go.

I must drive people nuts with my incessant chatter. What am I, five?

It occurs to me regularly that I should just STFU, but I can’t hear myself over all my talking. Sometimes I am so embarrassed that I talk even more. It’s a nervous reaction.

I just love the sound of my own voice. And I think I’m funny too. It’s a headache-inducing combination.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Blah.

Do you suffer from a hearing inability due to your talking ability? Do you sometimes wish you were quieter, more introverted, The Mysterious Type? Any tips on making myself shut it?

[Image via Abuzeedo]

Easy money

Like the cobbler's wife that has no shoes, I have no budget. My hub is a banker and a qualified financial planner, but no, we have no budget.

I've realised that aside from occasionally going a bit mad buying stuff for the house that we probably don't need, we are fairly careful with our money. I know that we buy whatever we want at the grocery store and that as a family we have never gone without (see point 'My husband is a banker' above), but still I think we are careful. We don't carry any debt (except our Obligatory Overwhelming Aussie Mortgage (OOAM)).

There are lots of little things we do without thinking that probably make the difference.

We don't drink a lot. Our 'alcohol' budget is generally minimal to non-existent during an average week.

We buy fruit and vegetables and meat fresh every other day. I know this flies in the face of the 'buy in bulk' mentality, but little and often means we always use what we purchase.

I have a bad back, but I still get my massages at the Nature Care Clinic which I discovered twenty years ago when I was a penniless student with a bad back. $38 for an hour long remedial massage. Happy with that.

In the same way, I wait for a Jump On It hair special to come up before getting my hair done. I haven't paid full price for a cut since I was ripped off by a salon who tried to charge me $200 for a haircut because it by a 'Senior Stylist' when I didn't even realise I was getting the infamous 'Senior Stylist' (and nor, it would seem, did my hair).

With the Tsunamis we have 'buying days' and 'no-buying days'. This renders pester-power a non-entity at our place. I tell them before we go that it's a no-buying day' and while there used to be whiny 'oh Mums', these days they just accept that a no-buying day is exactly that.

I've found myself having my own 'no-buying days' and try from time to time to not buy anything that's not food-related for a month or so. I generally do this if we need to get back on track and save a bit extra.

We religiously save money into a completely separate account (it's even with a separate bank). The money goes out when our pay comes in and we don't even look at it.

Yeah, well, I know these tips are pretty pathetic compared to people who are actually thrifty.  Those amazing meal-planning, hole-mending, co-opting, re-purposing geniuses. That's why I wrote this post... can you tell me what tips you have to help us all stay on track?

[Image by Elvira'sDADA]

Super Heroes

The world has been a crazy place in 2011. Our children are noticing that something is different. They can feel the earth shifting around them and the waters tumbling in.

At bedtime I have a little ritual of the 'sleepy story' with my children. I tell them a tale about me as a young girl. I can never remember my exact age with childhood events and so I usually say "I must have been, oh, about ten". And Maxi says"You're always ten in these stories! I can't wait to be ten!"

After my sleepy-story each child goes to their own bed and I tuck them in with a 'magic sheet'. I say, Safe and warm in Cappers' bed, peaceful dreams, my sleepy head. The 'magic' bit is that the sheet keeps them safe and warm all night, even if it comes off (this part was invented because for a while there they were kicking off the sheet and I had to go through the whole ritual again).

Last night Maxi said, "Why are people being drowned in Japan?'

I said, "Sometimes bad things happen just because."

He said, "But why?"

And I said, "Well if everything was good all of the time, people wouldn't get the chance to practice their super hero skills."

"So we need some bad stuff so we can be extra strong?"

"Yes, my darling, we do."


[Image via weheartit. Please let me know if this image is yours so I can correctly attribute it.]

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Shared in March.

Having the time of day

Aside from that exact moment when my butt hits the bedsheets at the end of a long one, twilight is my favourite time of day. The winding down of a full day is like the soothing tick-tock of life's true rhythm.

Sometimes we head to the beach in the late afternoon, to swim in the fading daylight. The waves are calmer and everything has a pinkish-hue as if rose-coloured glasses are suddenly the norm.

We often grab a glass of wine and sit out on our front verandah, watching the day shut up shop. If we're feeling generous, the Tsunamis are allowed out to roam the front garden and the reserve, looking for insects and trouble. Watching them amble about, all scrubbed and pajaymaed, is like a balm at day's end.  And, of course, they are never better behaved or more loving then when the threat of straight-to-bed is looming.

Twilight: I love it here.

What's your favourite time of the day? Are you one of those early-birds who greets the dawn? If you are, do reveal how you manage to bound out of bed in the dark day after day because I've done that once and I've suffered from PTSD ever since...

[Image via the dreded weheartit. Note that if you are Team WTF I wouldn't recommend doing an image search for 'twilight'... 'dusk' is preferable!]

Those bleeping machines

Does your washing machine beep at you when it's finished its load? How about the microwave? The dryer? The oven?

The fridge if you take an extra minute to unload the groceries? The hair straightener if you pause between sizzles? The iron if it catches you daydreaming for 30 seconds?

Aaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What I'm daydreaming about is a world without bossy machines!