Employment issues

Uh Oh. Last night, while I was sitting in front of the computer, Col called my bluff on getting a job. He had come accross an advertisement on the Pedal Power website looking for a part time book keeper/office manager and thought it sounded like an opportunity for me: Twenty hours a week. Record Keeping. Dealing with people/cyclists. Must say I was lost for words.

Not that there is pressure I should go and contribute to household income (though that would be nice) but there is the sense from all that a small job would be good for me.

It is true that I have complained to anyone who will listen these last couple of years of my extended Betty Friedan moment, the frustration I feel and the fear that I am the sum only of a mind numbing rota of house duties. But just lately I seem to have relaxed a bit and maybe even sensed my life is opening up a little. So I have to say getting a job was the last thing on my mind. It didn't help of course that I was ebaying at the time and only minutes away from placing the winning bid on my birthday present - Two Vintage Dining Chairs with Sleek Retro Line.

But now I've had a few days to think it over a bit and I'm kind of liking the idea. Especially as they look to be having trouble filling the position and will be getting desperate. Of course I would be honest about my shortcomings: I have no experience with MYOB. I haven't been in paid work for seventeen years. I struggle daily with chronic illness. Twenty hours is five two many. I shun bikes.

But there are worries too. What if I had another three month run of back to back infections like these past three? Can the internet ever really be your world (I am sure it showed on my face - the horror, my friend, of a job tearing me away from you, the computer. And why now? Why, when we've only just secured for ourselves unlimited downloads in non-peak hours????) or be a good subsitute for spending the day with actual people (or even crazy mad keen cyclists as in this case)? These are the questions I must ask myself.

The things you do.

Thanks must go to Archie for his help last night in explaining to the plumber what the problem was before I had the chance. "WE PUT THINGS IN OUR TOILET" he explained before the plumber could even set foot inside the house. "Things you PUT in a toilet" he elaborated delicately, hinting at the whole raison d'etre someone might invite a plumber over. He then followed the plumber around the backyard to see if he might be of any help. I hope he is not thinking of becoming a plumber because as Ruby said plumbing is the "fifth worst job" she can think of. I do think though Archie has some kind of bent for how things work (and I use the word 'things' here in a more general way). For example yesterday while I was hiding from my life in the bathroom he unpicked the lock from the outside with a paddle pop stick.

In other household matters, crunch time has arrived. I have asked Ruby to decide whether the thick navy tracksuit pants are pajamas or school uniform. They cannot be both.

Hip embroidery

You know how it is when you're fixated on something and then you see it everywhere - whereas before it would slip below the radar? Like when I was learning to drive I saw cars with L plates everywhere. Or when I was pregnant other pregnant women would turn up every place I went. Well, now that I am into embroidery (another rite of passages) I see it all over the place and suddenly it seems hipper than ever. This for example in the New Frankie just off the press. They're by sublime stitcher Jenny Hart.

Hacking

Only two more sleeps until Col gets his new bike - such a flashy upgrade for someone who has been riding the same old racer for twenty years. It will set us back $850 but I like to pretend it's more like $1300 as a way of coping with the recent discovery our server has been charging us around $200 a month for all our internet downloads. Otherwise I just feel ill at the waste. Am sure someone has been hacking into our computer and using up our bytes. No more buddy, party is OVER.

Flu

Flu worse than ever - hate to think then what would be involved with swine flu! Had both kids home with it all last week too. Luckily Col (still in cast and collar bone not yet healed) was able to do all the cooking and walking to the shop. As I am the only one able to drive I got us all up the shops on Saturday to Beyond Q - the local second hand book shop which also has a cafe with great coffee. I exchanged some unwanted books for $35 worth of credit and we were all able to choose something then have coffee and cake. I got an old copy of Mia Freedman's The New Black which is the perfect book to read when you are sick - short little article sized chapters on light topics. Ruby got the first in the Lemony Snickett series for $8 too. It always feels like such an achievement, pulling off a fun day within the confines of illness and not feeling like it's laying waste to your life. I guess that's the challenge.

Here's some stuff from around the house whch makes me smile.

Assemblage

I am almost definitely wanting to study some art part time next year. Thats of course if I pass an interview to get into the course. I applied for this same course two years ago and an interview date was set. In the post came a letter detailing what would be expected portfolio wise. I had been hoping to use the same musty old portfolio I've been using since 1986 to get into various art courses but when I took a good look inside said folio I began to wince. There were no 'assemblages' in there (did they even have those in 1986?) and there was certainly no Computer Aided Imagery. Where was the request, I wonder, for a Poorly Rendered Still Life in Charcoal? My portfolio sported three of those. Times sure have changed. Before I could desperately glue a few assemblages together my little three year old was suddenly hospitalised and diagnosed with a rare osteo disease and I, shamelessly, used this as an excuse to pull out of the interview. The disease would probably run it's course over three years. Surely enough time to come up with one assemblage you would think. But here I am mid year 2009 with no Assemblages. Unless you count the weetbix deposits gathering under the kitchen table like stalagmites...

An unexpected turn of events.

Monday night while bathing kids and getting dinner a stranger rang to tell me Col had had an accident while riding home and needed me to come pick him up. I knew immediately it must be baddish because Col has had accidents before and still managed to drag himself and bike home. "Is it bad?" I asked. "Uh yes" said stranger in clipped tones (a mental image of Alain De Botton only in cycling gear made itself available to me). Slipping effortlessly into the role of Panicky Wife I took down some confused coordinates for a bike path in Aranda, thanked the man and went to get the kids rugged up so we could go and find daddy all bruised and broken somewhere on a bikepath in the dark. Fortunately Col managed to collect himself and call me on his mobile before I had left the house and I convinced him to call an ambulance. Then worried he would fall unconscious again before calling I decided to call them myself. Yes, they assured me without any patronising or making me feel bad about being Panicky Wife, they were already on their way to find him. They also rang me back when they had him in the ambulance en route the hospital to assure me everything would be fine. They were so nice.
So now Col is home for two weeks, one arm in a sling the other in a cast that covers most of his hand. It never occurred to me before how helpless you would be in this situation. Add to that he has to sleep sitting up. Fortunately as a patient Col is not the whiny kind and so is getting the best out of his dodgy innattentive nurse (me).

RETRO DOLLS HOUSE

What could be better than the retro doll's house? I took the kids to see this exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Gallery last year. I think I enjoyed it more than they did.

AUSTRALIA'S NEXT TOP MODEL

Had the misfortune last night of watching Australia's Next Top Model where infantile adults get to judge teenage girls on their looks. Even the usually lovely Sarah O Hare forces out comments akin to "We thought you were shy but now we can see there's nothing actually there" to a sixteen year old contestant. Constructive right?
But that's nothing to Alex Perry who stands in a tragic little huddle of immaturity with Charlotte Dawson and Priscilla Leighton Clark (model agent) while the teenage girls are forced to walk through a room on their own by way of introduction to a small crowd of fashion and celebrity types. Snipes such as "She's got no top lip. What a block head" and "What a lump. What a moose." suggest Perry was either systematically rejected by the most beautiful girls in High School or dropped on his head at birth causing an arrested development the likes of which the fashion world has never seen.
Best in show however must go to stylist John Pease, who is fully nasty in his criticism of the the girls' non existent modelling skills (hello, the actual premise of the show) and yet throws an almighty hissy fit when one of the girls suggests the Swimwear Couture he's chosen for a shoot looks like something out of a Special K ad. Unable to take what he's been dishin' John accuses the teenage girl of being...wait for it...unprofessional. Boy I got a good laugh out of that one.

Supposedly the tough fashion industry needs it's models to be resillient to constant and crass judgements but what teenage girl has buckets of resillience about her looks? Seeings the industry leeches and survives off the youth and beauty of these kids maybe they should be showing THEM more respect and not the other way around.

BAZAAR STYLE

My favourite picture book at the moment is Bazaar Style by Serena Lake.

Chickie Has His Portrait Done

I couldn't believe it the other day when I found Archie in the studio drawing his new friend Chickie. He never draws! And chickie was sitting there in a quiet composure until the drawing was completed! Madness!

Have wondered lately if Archie's reluctance to draw has anything to do with all the coddling from Perthes' disease he gets. The inactivity, the lack of opportunity to build hand strength out on the monkey bars like other kids. With the latest x ray results we've relaxed that a bit so is he feeling freer to try out other stuff too? More confident with his motor skills? Or is it just the inspiration gained from our trip last week to Canberra's new National Portrait Gallery?

DOLL MAKING

These are the dolls I managed to make this weekend from polymer. Harder than I thought. Not the sliding in of pins and creating the connecting 'joints'. More the modelling of the limbs etc. Obviously more practise needed. The prototype however had her first shoot in the 'dolls house'. She has no joints so tends to look uncomfortable, possibly even dead with encroaching rigormortis. Not ideal for your first modelling assignment is it?

PS For more crap craft, seriously amateur photography and art gone horribly wrong return soon.