Wow. I Suck at This!!

So... my last post was in March?!

Time flies when you're having fun with a little Punk, let me assure you. It is now August... AUGUST!!! I can hardly believe it but it's true. Just over a month until I turn 28. It's funny you know... I remember a time in my teens when I couldn't even IMAGINE turning 25. 25 sounded ancient and anything more than that just didn't bear thinking about. That was when I was 15 maybe, 16?

Where did I think I would be when I was 27, all the way back then...?! Well, having established that 27 was too old to ever want to be, I'll settle for where I thought I'd be at 25. What and who I thought I would be.

There were a lot of dreams. Dreaming is one of the things I do the very best. Most dreams saw me living in the city, in an apartment. I remember fantasising about driving (small car, hatchback perhaps, red) home to my apartment & getting out & walking up the stairs wearing a business clothes. Don't ask me what sort of job I would have had... somehow I never got to that part. The most important part was to be living in a city. At 16 I lived in a tiny country town which I hated with a passion, nothing seemed more exciting that city life.

And here I am. Recently returned to another country town. Not as small as that one from my teens, but certainly no city. The time for city life and apartment living has come and gone (and I did love it, just as much as I always knew I would), as has the time for living in a shack on the Hawksbury River with an outside bathroom, the time for living in a boarding house on my own in an unknown town, the time for living by the beach with salt in the air, the time for living in a unit amongst hundreds of others with paper-thin walls, the time for living in an old house in the mountains where it occasionally snowed, the time for living on a well heeled street in the suburbs... now is the time for renting a house with an abnormally large backyard, keeping chickens and playing with toys, while saving ever so slowly to buy a house with an abnormally large backyard for keeping chickens in and lots of room for playing with toys.

I can't say I imagined this life... not a 16. Later I definitely would have dreamt of a simpler life... I have a dirty little hippie buried deep inside somewhere, but I was never one of those girls who dreamed of having kids and living happily ever after. I can't honestly say why - whether I thought that 'happily ever after' was an unobtainable myth, or whether I just couldn't imagine meeting a little child that didn't annoy the hell out of me... Definitely I was extraordinarily selfish and self absorbed, I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many teenage girls that aren't, so that could be why. Perhaps even then I realised that to have a child or even a handsome prince, would mean that the story wouldn't be all about me anymore.

It's a cliche to say that I love my life even though I never planned it this way, but cliches are cliches because they occur over and over again in life, and for something to keep happening like that, well, there must be a reason. You just cannot imagine the impact of having a child of your own until you have one. Even when you're expecting a child, when there is no escaping your massive belly, constant heartburn & aching legs, you have no idea. You are still you and for you, albeit much heavier and with more erratic hormones. You don't know even when you are in the throes of labour, the pain (and it is pain, no matter what they say... I tried that calm birth visualisation hoodoo... bah humbug!!) is yours and yours alone.

You know, the moment you hold your baby. You know that from then on, your life is not your own. You know that the tiny person you have clutched to your breast will hold your heart in their hands for the rest of your life. You know that their pain will be your pain and that their joy will be your joy, and you could not be happier about it.

So. This is where I am. Sometimes I miss city life. Sometimes I miss the unfettered life I had before I was a mother. But, the more I take the time to enjoy the little things in the here and now, the more I forget about that time, and I would not, even for a second, give up what I have now to go back. Instead I look towards the future, with a sticky little hand in my own. (Take that 16 year old me! :P)

Right! What have we been up to in those missing months...?!

Hibernating, mostly. It's been so cold here & The Boy got his licence which meant we got a car and walking everywhere was no longer necessary. Unfortunately that has meant that we walk hardly anywhere, that goes for riding the bike too. It's just so cold all the time, and not only that, it looks like it is going to rain almost every second of every day... Sometimes it does & sometimes it doesn't but the problem is you never can tell.

For the most part I don't mind hibernating. Punky seems happy enough with a run around the yard, a bout of drawing, tickle matches & a session of Yo Gabba Gabba, which is just as well as we gave up on the swimming lessons for a term and a half. First lesson again tomorrow - we've already missed 3 this term so I can honestly say I am not entirely looking forward to tomorrow mornings inquisition about where we've been and why we've not been attending. I don't think the truth (I am a lazy slob) will go down too well. Perhaps I should invent a tragic imaginary illness for a tragic imaginary great Aunt or something.

I thought I would post here again because funnily enough, while trying to start an entirely different blog to do with my solely crafty exploits, I revisited this one & enjoyed reading it, the little there is of it to read mind you.

For instance, I'd forgotten all about making the sushi... that wasn't terribly fun but it was an experience & I'm glad I wrote about it.

Another experience I don't want to forget; A couple of days ago Punky and I decided we needed to use up some of the eggs our chookies are so graciously supplying for us, so we emptied the cupboard of anything and everything we could possibly use for baking; flour, sultanas, dates, sugar etc and scoured our op shop rescued old school cookbooks & found a recipe for Date Loaf.

Date Loaf
(From a cover-less, yellowed, water damaged, "crispy", copy of The Commonsense Cookery Book, compiled by the Public Schools Cookery Teachers' Association of NSW, reprinted in 1957, with some of the best cooking related advertisements I have ever seen)


Ingredients.-

• 2 cups flour.
  
• 1/2 cup sugar.
  
• 1 cup dates.
  
• 1 level dessertspoon baking powder.
  
• 1 egg.
  
• Small cup milk.
  
• 2 level tablespoons butter.
  
• Pinch of Salt.
  

Method.-

1. Beat butter and sugar to a cream.
   
2. Add well-beaten egg.
   
3. Add milk gradually.
   
4. Add chopped dates.
   
5. Stir in lightly the flour, baking powder and salt sifted.
   
6. Half fill greased tin.
   
7. Bake in a moderate oven 3/4 of an hour.

What we did differently; Well, firstly, nothing was "beaten" more sort of "squished" together by The Little Punk's courageous mixing efforts. The dessertspoon measurement was taken to mean an actual dessertspoon but it was later discovered that it was something like 1/2 a tablespoon... why they wouldn't just write that I don't know... Baking paper instead of greasing the tin and a moderate oven was probably not wholly achieved. By and large however the experience was a good one and we ended up with a delicious, if not terribly photogenic, date loaf.

We also made a half dozen sultana cupcakes but they were even less photogenic & even more yummy... ;)

I LOVE the iBert seat!!

...seriously. How did we ever get by without it?! Oh that's right, I had to walk everywhere pushing the chariot, with Little Punk whinging & trying to escape!!

Bright green mean machine is much better.

Punky is actually excited about going out on the bike! She gets upset if I leave her with The Boy & ride off without her infact... it really is love.

We rode the bike to swimming today - Little Punk was the sole pupil! Don't know what kept the other little minows away, but Punky didn't like it! She loves seeing the other babies & because they weren't there Punky had to do alot more work than usual lol, no slacking off in the pool today... ;)

AND... We got chickens! They are so, so cute, but I'm yet to take the camera out there - slack I know. After much um-ing & ah-ing, their names were decided;

Foofa (White with black specks)

Henny Penny (Red)

Cybil (Black) &

Mab (Tan & Black)

Holly Dog keeps harrassing them, hopefully the novelty will wear off soon & she will leave them be.

Private blog post, number 1!!

Right!

Now I truely will be writing just for The Punk, and just for me. I've made the blog private so that only me, myself & I can read it... why I didn't think of it before I don't know.

This way the pressure is still off with regard to how often & what I post, but I still CAN post if I feel the urge.

I like it.

News for today - cooking exploits - made sushi for the very first time. Looked terrible but tasted OK. Punky liked it which was the main thing, she's not had sushi since we moved here whereas she used to have it atleast once a week. She was unsure for a second (I don't blame her...) but then chowed down & got rice, tuna & seaweed everywhere. She still has rice in her hair...

Last Post....

Well. I gave it a go. Blogging. It's not for me.

It's ridiculous but it's always in the back of my mind, or rather, the fact that I am not "doing" it is....

I am resolving to spend less time on the computer, much less & getting more done around the house, crafting wise, housework wise & hanging out with Punky wise... the well being she will have from being played with, taught & loved will stay with her much longer than any novel enjoyment she might get out of reading about how I played with, taught or love her!!

I might leave this up for a week or so before I delete it, you never know, I might change my mind... but somehow... I think I won't.

Another purchase.

I think, that, if nothing else, this blog will serve as a reminder to me of how things never seem to turn out how I think they will.

You will recall that a couple of weeks ago I was terribly excited about getting a bike trailer to haul Punky around on, after I got my bike of course.... Well.

I picked up my bike on a Tuesday morning & was soooooo happy when the trailer arrived a couple of hours later, I wasted no time in putting it together & taking Le Punk for a spin....


Issue A: Punky hated it. HATED. She hated the helmet, the restraint in the trailer, being in the trailer & if I'm honest, she really didn't look very comfortable.


I thought "She'll get used to it, it's just the first time..." so later in the day I decided to try again. This time I put a couple of pillows behind Punky so that she looked a bit more comfy & adjusted the straps so they were under her arms (...that's probably illegal but she was still very secure!) & away we went. She wasn't happy at all. The only way I could get her to settle down & not scream & squirm was give her her dummy & my phone & a book & random other things, having to get off the bike & go back to the trailer to give her something else of pick up what she'd dropped so often that I wasn't really riding at all, just pushing along my bike with a heavy trailer dragging behind it. There was a tiny hill, I'm talking minuscule... and the combination of my being terribly unfit & the weight of the trailer saw us walking yet again.

We finally reached the park where I collapsed in a heap while Punky, liberated from her rolling cage, bounced merrily around on the grass.

When I'd plucked up the courage to make a start on the journey home (oh, we're talking like a 15min walk here, not a marathon distance...) we set off rather well, until, while trying to negotiate yet another small incline the chain came off the bike... now I don't know anything at all about bikes or reinstalling chains so I put it back on as best I could & we continued on, it soon became apparent however that however I had put the chain on was definitely incorrect - the gears wouldn't change at all. Fair enough, I could pedal in the gear I was in until we got home... that was until the seat on my bike slipped backwards - the bolts were obviously too loose. That annoyed me more than anything, I'd paid an extra $40 to have the bike assembled when I bought it as I know that The Boy and I are just not the kind for correct & stress free bike assembly.


SO. We got home & were both ridiculously glad to be there.

The next day I rang the shop that had assembled the bike & told them about the chain & the seat, they said to bring it back & they would fix it. The Boy took it down for me as I couldn't do it with The Punk in tow & was stopped by the police... I didn't think he would have been riding it because of the state it was in, but, alas, he was, and without a helmet at 5.30am (on the way to work), luckily for him they just had a bit of a grumble & left him to go on his way. The next day when he brought it home I went out to ask him if it was better & received "Nope" in reply.

Apparently he hadn't notice that the gears still didn't work until he was halfway home, and the seat was still loose.

Convinced that the store I bought the bike from had NFI I literally dragged the damn thing back down the street to the bike shop to have them fix it, The Boy picked it up for me a couple of days ago & joy of joys, $50 later it works again..... but the seat was still loose!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaargggggggggh!

The Boy bought home the appropriate seat tightening tool this afternoon & it is now, finally, tightened, and the bike is ride able. That doesn't change the trailer situation however, it just isn't going to work for us.

I have spent the last couple of days trawling through so many reviews, articles & advertisements for different kinds of bicycle child carriers that I have been dreaming of them.

Not only are there so many different kinds but the opinions on all of them vary greatly, depending on where you look.

Before Punky was born I saw a picture in a magazine of the Weeride, I had never seen a front mounted child carrier before & thought it was a fantastic idea, in fact that is what inspired me to get a new bike in the first place, but after looking at all my options I decided to go with the bike trailer as although some people disagree, the majority of reviews seemed to think that bike trailers are the far superior safety option for kids & cycling. Well, now having the "best" option ruled out, I went back to the Weeride.

I found several reviews, amongst the raves, about issues with parents having to ride "bow legged" or having their knees bump painfully on the seat, then I found several opinions on front mounted carriers in general, being referred to as "Euro baby killers" & "Kid killer carriers" etc, understandably, that was rather distressing. It seems that this opinion, about the front mounted seat being extremely unsafe, is spouted mostly by mountain bike enthusiasts without progeny of their own. They would reply to anyone who had actually used a European style front mounted child carrier with comments like "...you disgust me with your European child killing devices.." or, when told by a parent who has safely used a seat for many hours of riding, through many children "That's like saying you drive drunk but haven't crashed yet...", then it seemed that it wasn't just front mounted carriers being dismissed as unsafe, but all bicycle carriers altogether, one user on a forum for bike enthusiasts stated something along the lines of "...if you can't afford a car you should just stay home..." - erm, yes... because NOBODY has ever died in a car accident, have they?

As much as I wish it hadn't, the negative comments about front mounted carriers made me second guess myself & my intuition - I had originally loved the idea of the child being up front with you, observed at all times, "safe" between your arms & enjoying the ride, I had wondered at the enjoyment of riding in back, with a view of your butt & unobserved/not easily attended to. I spent what seems like another age looking at all the rear mounted seats & the reviews & opinions on which of those is best.... oh.... my... god.

You wouldn't think that this would be SO HARD! Then, ironically, I found testimonials from people about how they had a rear mounted bike seat & it was awful, unsafe etc etc etc, blah blah blah....

I swear I almost gave up right then & there - but then I'd be stuck with a bike I couldn't ride unless The Boy was home with Punky. I started again, clean slate.


I decided that I did in fact want a front mounted carrier, the issues with rear mounted just seemed too great - the centre of gravity of the bike is changed, making for issues with bike handling & balance, you can't easily see the child or whether they've catapulted a shoe overboard or their helmet is in their eyes, you can't interact with the child, it's difficult to load & unload the child while balancing the bike on your own and it didn't seem like a very comfortable or fun way to ride for the child.

As for the "kid killer" comments, challenged as they were to prove any sort of incidence of injury to a child from a front mounted seat specifically, the nay sayers that I found could not produce the goods. In my opinion, if you are involved in an accident on a bike with a child in any sort of carrier, nobody is going to come off that great, but, prevention is always better than cure. From the HUNDREDS of reviews I have read by real parents with real kids who put their real carrier on a real bike, the overwhelming majority who have tried a front mounted carrier are happy with the ride & the safety aspects. Parents, in my experience, do not generally, cheerfully, put their child in harms way. Soooo many of the negative reviews from bike enthusiasts seemed to be saying "...but what if you were pelting down a dirt track & hit a rock & endo'd (flew over the handlebars) - you'd squash the kid..." ...yes. Well. I think even if you had your child coated in titanium body armour that sort of thing would be dangerous, but for a gentle, slow, careful ride around town....? How many people do you see riding happily down the street suddenly fly A over T over their handlebars? Perhaps it really is a common occurrence in the lives of mountain bikers, but I have never done it, not even come close. Adding to the general consensus was the fact that front mounted carriers are quite the norm in countries where biking is an everyday, common form of transport, front mounted carriers are very popular.

So, having decided on where I wanted the seat, I had to decide on what seat I wanted there.


I narrowed it down to three choices;

The bobike mini.

The Weeride.

The ibert Safe-T-Seat.

All have their pros & cons.

The bobike mini; Pretty much every review I read on this was favourable, bar a couple. What made me strike it off my list was the lack of moulded leg supports - I could just see Punky hating that fact that her feet were strapped in but her legs weren't - moulded leg supports seem more comfortable, the leg is resting on the support as opposed to being held down by a foot strap only.


The Weeride; Lots of rave reviews on this one & it is by far the most popular & well known front mounted carrier in Australia, in fact, before I really started researching it, I thought it was the ONLY front mounted carrier! What I liked about the Weeride is that it is mounted on it's own specially mounted bar that secures to the centre rack, that & the cool little dashboard deal'e that the kidlet can hold on to as well as rest their weary head on. I abandoned this idea because on every page of reviews, atleast a quarter of them mentioned something about having to ride with your legs/knees right out & although it wasn't that much of an issue for some, it was for others & it definitely would be for me. From the photos of the Weeride in action, there really doesn't seem to be too much room left for the rider. Also, many reviews talked about the fact that if the child fell asleep even with their head resting on the dashboard, they would have to continually centre their head on the board or hold them steady as they would keep slipping off.

The ibert Safe-T-Seat; This seat is relatively new to the market, well, compared to the other two (I believe bobike have been around for years & years, while the Weeride has been around for a while, with a name change along the way) & has very few negative reviews against it. In fact, if you want to see a major ibert love fest, check out the amazon reviews in particular. Several articles I found where independent testers had trialed the Weeride & the ibert together, the ibert came out a hair in front - because of the extra knee/leg room afforded to the rider. One main difference between the two is that the ibert is mounted to the actual handlebar stem, while the Weeride is centre mounted - I initially thought this would be an issue with handling/steering but by most accounts the difficulty is minimal & nothing compared to the handling issues of a rear mounted seat. Can you tell this is the one I ordered?!

I was sold by the fact that the Aussie distributor offers a 100% money back satisfaction guarantee - I can try it & return it if I don't like it, but I am hoping, hoping, hoping, that it will be a keeper. We all know however, what happens to carefully laid plans around here...

I do have a good feeling though. I had to try a couple of baby carriers before we found the Ergo & loved it & I bought that based on the mass of positive reviews I found, so fingers crossed for me!!

Excitement abounds.....

...here this morning! Oh... oops, I mean afternoon... how did that happen..?!


Just had a knock at the door, Mr Postie, baring gifts, yay!


This;

Metric Pattern Cutting for Children's Wear and Babywear 3rd addition my Winifred Aldrich.

I put the voucher I won on CM towards this so ended up only paying $35 all up for a book which can retail for $82.95!! Yeah! It's nice & weighty with a delicious new book smell... can't wait to get stuck into it!

And this;

Volume four of Torpedo magazine - a tribute to Richard Brautigan. Brautigan is my absolute favourite author of all time, ever and The Boy's little bro let me know about this, can't wait to read it either, it also came with some gorgeous prints of artists interpretations of his writing, they really are divine.

Now, no more spending!! (Until next Thursday... Stitches & Craft show, here I come!!)

Pink Fig Olivia Shirt.

I was very happy to receive a Crafty Mamas parcel yesterday which held 2 Pink Fig patterns, a hat pattern & some purty FOE.

I made this today;

The Olivia shirt.

Unfortunately, I am very underwhelmed by how it turned out. I don't think I like it at all. It was very easy & straight forward to put together & I like the fabric combo, but it's just so... puffy.

It puts me in mind of Seinfeld's infamous "puffy shirt" episode. I am going to try some tweaks, maybe the shorter sleeved version without the chest shirring would be okay, more smock top than pirate wench attire, hopefully.

On the shirring, when I first had a go at shirring I just did it how I thought one would do it & it turned out well, that was, I sort of sewed in a continual downward spiral. This pattern told me, I assume, the "proper" way to do it, which is in rows leaving enough either side to tie it together with a few knots. I tried it that way first, for the neck, but went back to my instinctive way of doing it for the rest, I think it turned out tighter as well as being soooo much easier, and quicker.