31.7.11

Small things.

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Think about your day. Don’t just think about the big things you want to do or have done, think about each little moment that when combined with hundreds of other little moments, makes your day complete.

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The little rituals you go through every day. Usually unconsciously. Sometimes consciously.

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The things you enjoy in a way that is hard to explain.

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The things you enjoy just because they happen & the way that you feel when they happen; content.

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Like doing the dishes while your baby boy sits in his highchair beside you, madly mashing plastic cups & utensils together & making an incredible racket – so excited by the sound & the songs about ducks & teddy bears you sing to him that his smile, his sweet innocent energy, is infectious.

30.7.11

Amazeballs.

If I were the type to use a “word” like ‘Amazeballs’, I would be inclined to use it about work like this.

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I found Kira Shaimanova the day after Amy Winehouse died when Regretsy linked to the distasteful profiteering on Etsy by way of an Amy Winehouse treasury. By the time I made it over the front page was Amy-free so I did a search to see what sort of horrors were on offer, which is when I found the amazing work “Amy Wildhorse” (created long before Amy’s unfortunate death) & had to see what else this artist had to offer.

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This stuff puts me in mind of the old animated films that used to be on sometimes in school holidays, like Willy McBean & his Magic Machine, executed with an artist’s flair & meticulous attention to detail, I love it all.

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(Definition of “Amazeballs” from the Urban Dictionary

Some annoying term Perez Hilton keeps trying to make happen, by saying it repeatedly, even though it makes no sense, and getting twitter followers to try and make it a trending topic, to make himself more famous for no reason.

Eg: The fact that someone like Perez Hilton can make six figures by being an annoying douchebag is amazeballs.)

29.7.11

Frock Up Friday.

To my mind, there are two types of women in the world; those who wear dresses regularly & those who don’t. I, in case you couldn’t guess, am in the later group, but it does a gal good to frock up occasionally, especially if, like me, she has been feeling particularly frumpy & hideous. As of this morning’s unfortunate date with the bathroom scales, I am about 5 kilos heavier than I have ever been in my life (not pregnant) & I do not like it.

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I feel a bit hopeless about my weight at the moment; I take the sausages for a 30-40 minute brisk walk everyday, I don’t eat excessively or anything particularly bad (as I have in the past), I have replaced one meal a day with a green smoothie (not for weight reasons, but I thought it might have made some sort of difference…) & I keep staying exactly the same on those damn bathroom scales.

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I think there must be something up with my metabolism – even when I was first away from home with a meagre food budget (think one meal a day, think pot noodles for that one meal) I never neared “thin”. I actually fainted in my room from lack of food but you’d never know it to look at me. I don’t want to be thin; I’ve given up on that long-held dream, right now I’d settle for just fitting comfortably in my pre-Suspence clothes, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, which makes me, well…. sad. Sad & Frumpy with a capital ‘F’. But today, I’m embracing another word that starts with f: Frock.

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Yeah I’m still a heffalump with unsightly bumps & lumps, but I’m a heffalump in a dress. The sun is shining & as far as I know, I’m healthy, so I’m going to avoid mirrors & enjoy the feeling of being a girl today. I need it.

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(Gratuitous sausage-dog pictures provided to soften the blow of having to see me in a dress…)

28.7.11

Just a warning…

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Something funky & not at all cool is going on with my email address in the way of either a virus, it being compromised or someone using my email as a proxy. I am frantically trying to fix it but I just wanted to let any of you guys that might get something from me that is obviously not really “from” me, proffering Viagra or telling you I’m stuck in France & need to borrow cash (I wish!), to ignore, delete & send me happy “#$%^ off computer malice" type vibes. Apologies. It is very odd that one can feel so guilty about something they have no control over! “Sorry I sent you that link to investing in shares!” “Sorry about that penis enlargement email!” “Sorry!” “Sorry!” “SORRY!”.

21.7.11

Bike bike baby.

I have decided what I want for my birthday (it’s best to get in early).

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A new bike.

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I just have to decide what sort of bikeoh the possibilities (Within reason, I hear my darling mumbling)!

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Those of you that have been here for ages & ages & ages will recall that I used to ride everywhere, all the time, but then I got my licence, a preggers belly, a new baby & my bike got neglected to such a point that I think it is almost unsalvageable (think flat, think broken, think rusty, also think even if it were salvageable… I want a new bike).

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Suspence will be big enough soon to go in the bike in the seat that Punky used to love so much & I miss just jumping on the bike to go get milk or bread, so a-drooling over bikey things I shall be until it’s time to choose in earnest.

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A very spunky young lass that I used to work with in Bondi has a biking blog over here with a friend of hers. It’s called Feather Brigade – check it out for all sorts of cute bike related things, including what they get up to on the city streets with their glam wheels. I was just perusing when I saw a link to CycleStyle…. if you have a bike peeps, take your credit card out of the freezer before you click over to take a look, anything & everything you could ever want for your bike is there, including heaps of things you never knew you needed (but you so do).

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(images via weheartit)

20.7.11

Oops.

Already broken my self-imposed pledge to post once a day for two weeks, oh well!

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A bit of excitement, or what passes for excitement in my house; my tweet was on the telly! (I’ll have to draw names out of a hat as to which of you will receive my autograph first, overwhelmed as I’m sure I shall be with requests…)

18.7.11

Selling your soul for a *name of product here*

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When *name of company here* first contacted me I thought “What on earth would I do with *name of product here*?”. Those of you who are regular readers of my blog will know that it’s been a long time since any *name of product here* have been anywhere near my house, but only hours later there was a *name of made up incident here* which *name of product here* would have been perfect for! Can you imagine?!

So of course I just had to get back in touch with the lovely people at *name of company here* & tell them all about it, sure that they’d get a kick out of the irony of it all, and blow me down with a feather they said they’d send me some *name of product here* to try, and not only that, they’d send me some *name of product here* to giveaway right here on my blog, too! How great is that? Now instead of you having to go to the supermarket & look in vain at the confusing shelves for some *name of product here*, all you have to do is go to *name of company here*’s website, tell me in the comments which of their products you’d like to use the most, follow me on twitter, follow *name of company here on twitter, like me on facebook, like *name of company here* on facebook, blog about this giveaway, tweet about this giveaway & take a picture of yourself standing next to a lettuce and you could have a one in sixty-three chance of winning some *name of product here* instead! How EASY is THAT?!

Of course you know I’m not in it for the free *name of product here*. Just as I would only review the *name of product here*, the *name of product here* and the box of *name of product here* if I thought they were a quality product that you would be interested in, so it is with *name of product here*. I have been using *name of product here* for over a week now and I have to say it *verb here* my *noun here* better than any other *name of product here* I have come across. I can’t believe my friends hadn’t already told me about *name of product here* – I mean, what, are they trying to keep all the *name of product here* benefits to themselves?

*name of company here* even has a special offer for my blog readers! That’s right, if you aren’t lucky enough to win one of the *name of product here* that *name of company here* has so generously offered, you can get 5% off your next *name of product here* when you go to *name of company here*’s website, sign up for their newsletter and sign over your third-born child! Awesome, right?

What are you waiting for? Enter NOW!

*name of blogger here* xoxo

Right. I know you’re wondering what the hell *name of hallucinogenic drug here* I’m on after that, so I will tell you what it’s about;

“Mummy blogs”. I was reading my usual blogs yesterday when one click lead to another & I was suddenly staring in horror at shades of brown & pink & blue, flowers & birds & caricatures of women (as in, real drawn in Illustrator caricatures, although I think perhaps the other way is also true) staring out at me from unfamiliar blog headers.

If I wanted to, just yesterday, I could have entered into a gazillion competitions to win anything from disinfectant to puppets, from snow-cone makers to magazines… & every single one of those giveaways was available because someone had reviewed it on their blog. Someone had actually said “Yes. I want some free *insert name of product here* & I will pimp out my blog to get it.”.

And these blogs have, apparently, people reading them. People participating in them. Quite a lot of people. Not only that, but there are SO MANY OF THEM. It’s like a whole other bloggy world that I quite honestly had no idea existed. Almost all of the blogs I come across are linked from a blog I already read or tweeted about by someone I like & although some of them aren’t my cup of tea, most of them are. And when they’re not my cup of tea it’s because I’m not overly interested in the content or there aren’t any pictures (I know, sorry) or the pictures that are there don’t grab me. They’re not ‘not my cup of tea’ because they are reviewing back-scratchers & flea shampoo. Nor are they raving about some great new “handmade” product that looks like it took 2 minutes with a hot glue gun & a lobotomy to make.

Look at the title of my blog. I am a mum. I blog. A lot of you (most?) are Mums. YOU blog. But I am just labelling here (as wrong as it may be to do so) a certain type of blog, as one might label someone (as wrong or fun as it may be to do so) a “bogan”. That’s why I’m using the inverted commas. You can do that & get away with anything “apparently”. I was told on twitter that it’s not just “Mummy Blogs” that do this & make you feel dirty just for having looked at them, there are others too… the mind boggles.

This post is a bit of a de-brief for me, because I was seriously (naively) shocked. Blogging to me is such an awesome thing; I have made friends that I have met & that I may never meet, I have gained inspiration & motivation, shared, laughed… all that soppy stuff…

I could never sell myself or my blog out for a free voucher to McCafe, nor would I like to read the blogs of people who do. I was curious as to what else these people even blog about so, taking a deep breath, I went back to try to look past the glaring giveaway/”review” posts, & was disappointed (or validated?) to see a ratio of something like 3:1 for giveaways vs “real” content. A couple would have been really nice – stories about days away & musings on what it means to be a mother – if at the bottom of that nice post there wasn’t another giveaway or an advertisement for face cream or something. I guess, like everything, blogging means different things to different people.

Having said all that though…

"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

…my icing might be the idea that I could enrich your lives through showing you the fun I could have on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disneyland…? (Please blog, tweet, re-tweet, facebook & re-re-tweet…)

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More on the foibles of blog giveaways here.

16.7.11

My Kryptonite.

When I go opping there are many things I will buy in a heartbeat & be happy with, but none could I possibly need less than another annual.

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They are my oppy Kryptonite, my absolute weakness, the thing I will buy for no other reason than I can’t NOT buy them. They fascinate me. They are fun & interesting, remind me of hours spent rummaging amongst my Gran’s bookshelves & are the tiniest piece of history bundled up into a hardcover book with the year conveniently printed on the cover.

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We did the rounds yesterday & I found these two; ‘Misty’ & ‘Eagle’ both from 1983, in an oppy having a half price book sale. Had they not been half price I may have wavered on the ‘Eagle’ one – I don’t necessarily NEED boy-themed annuals, but for $2 I really didn’t have any choice.

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Why don’t they make annuals any more? Do you have oppy Kryptonite? Doilies? Crochet hooks?

I bet you do.

15.7.11

Blogs, around the house.

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One often reads posts where a blogger declares that “…blogging has given me so much!”, & I would have to agree, literally.

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I love that I can go in almost any room of my house & see things that have come from other Bloggers – things I saw & wanted (needed!) or things they saw or made & thought I would like.

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It makes our little cottage even more cosy, so I thought I’d share a glimpse of just some of the things that really make our house a (blogger’s) home.

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(Punk’s room: Pyjama monster & rainbow haired doll from Sam. Vintage fabric lap quilt from Deb. Suspence’s room: Tiny ted from Jess, SUPER robot softie from Cath, plaid bunny from Jennie. My room: Many brooches from Cam, one from Liz & one from Cinti’s shop. The lounge room: Chooky pin-cushion from Alex. On the way to the laundry: Singlet from Bec, Skirt from Kate & another lovely dress from Alex. Kitchen: WELL used 80’s-esque tea towel from Nic.)

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14.7.11

Getting back on the horse.

I’m really missing blogging regularly but keep making excuses to myself as to why I can’t or I don’t have time to. As I said in my last post I have been uncharacteristically domestic lately and weirdly, it’s getting me down.

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Too much work & no play makes Vic a tad grumpy. So I am making a little pledge to blog every day for two weeks in the hopes that I will get back into the bloggy groove, starting today.

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If you need a bit of motivation too feel free to join me; it’s only two weeks… we can do it, & we may even want to keep it up afterwards. Stranger things have happened.

8.7.11

Half-assed-craft; repurposed Dachshund jumper.

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How quiet is it around here at the moment? I apologise but I am having a rare bout of domesticity; the house is in a state that DOES NOT have my heart racing if there is a knock at the door & we are wearing clothes that don’t have sauce stains on the front… this unique state of order comes at a cost however, & that seems to be any time I have for anything at all craft or blog related. Let us all hope I get over it soon.

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In the meantime I have a truly half-assed-doggie-craft; make a dog jumper from a human jumper sleeve. I doubt you need any instructions past “Cut arm off jumper & put two holes in it”, so I won’t insult you.

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I will say that trying to get Jordan to wear such a thing WAS an insult however, so Dixie – the shivery one – get’s two.

5.7.11

Time Warp Wives

I stumbled upon this article the other day (I wasn’t looking for dachshunds or anything… *coughs*) & discovered the phenomenon of “Time Warp Wives”; Women who have retreated to a time in the past within their own homes. Not women who are a bit obsessed with 50s items or 60s clothes, but women who are actually, for all intents & purposes, living in the past.

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My first reaction was “Cool”. But then I thought a bit more about it & realised I would not be able to do it. As much as I adore vintage things & the idea of living an idyllic 50s life (in a gorgeous & perfect looking 50s home); I just don’t have the happy home-maker in me. I do not live purely to pamper my “husband”, I would be mortified at the idea of him bringing home a mink as a birthday gift & I don’t look hot enough in teeny waisted vintage dresses.

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Imagine all the modern things you’d miss if you moved into your own piece of history? No new artists, no new music, no internet (although these people seem to get around that). Nothing challenging. It strikes me as living in fear somewhat; living in the certainty of the past & retreating from the reality of today.

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Watch the British documentary on “Time Warp Wives” here & come back to tell me what you think!

3.7.11

I get a little bit scared when I’ve nothing real to worry about. When everything is going well & I am happy & the worst thing that happens to me in a day is Punk throwing a tantrum over not  being allowed to have a fourth yoghurt, I am reminded of stories in tabloid magazines that begin with the words; “We had the perfect life until…”.

Makes being perfectly happy & content a tad less enjoyable, this odd paranoia of mine.

But it’s okay. I’ve had a couple of things to worry about in the last few days… like';

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Will the two adult miniature Dachshunds* that are coming to live with us like it here?

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Will they like the children?

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How long will it take to house train them?

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Why won’t they go to sleep?

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Why did I get two dogs?

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Can I deal with two dogs, and two kids?

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Are they running around too much after their spaying ops?

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What is that lump?

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No really, what is that lump?

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What will the vet say?

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Why don’t they like dog toys?

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Can you teach a dog to like dog toys?

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Where did the spatula go?

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Why do they like chewing spatulas & not dog toys?

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What is Mr going to say when he sees where they were sunning themselves on the spinach?

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What terrible thing is going to happen now that I have two lovely sausages happily toddling about, two sweet kids, a honey of a honey & a cosy home?

(Is that the sky falling….?)

*A boy & a girl – Jordan & Dixie, 4 & 5 years old, former breeding stud boy & pretty as a picture show champion, respectively.

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