Universal Complaint

It can't be easy being five years old and trying to get your message accross. Frustrated recently by his inablity to get out the exact right words, Archie has taken to more visual means of communication. Aided by the universal symbol for DON"T (A circle with a slash through it) he has signalled to his family what is acceptable and what is not.
I wonder if this would pass muster in all relationships? Someone has a problem with something you've done? Do as Ruby does with Archie now and just tell them to "Put it in writing".

Sisters should not share your allocated time on the computer.

Sisters should not slam doors -if you do I wont love you. (See love heart on right hand side with a cross through it).

When returning home from a party sisters should share out the lolly bag by half.

Please don't put honey on my crumpet.

What's upset the prom princess?

Have been playing around a bit with photoshop. I love that you can take any old measly drawing, put in a fab background and voila!

Only Their Mother Can Tell Them Apart

We are off to Dubbo zoo for a few days. See you when we get back!

Australia's Next Top Model (again)

Regular readers of this blog (ie my sister and possibly you Karen W) will know how disgusted I was with Australia's Next Top Model - the series on Fox8 which obscenely perpetuates the beauty obsession and thinness imperative our culture places on young girls and women. Well now I feel that I should come clean and admit that I have continued watching the series and that it's just about, like, only my FAVOURITE SHOW EVAH!!!!!!!!! And, like, I really totally want Cassie 2 win.

Poor Cassie. The other girls have picked up on her vulnerability and turned her into the scapegoat for just about everything. It is fascinating really just how mean girls can be. And the worse any one of their particular fortunes on the show are going the more Cassie cops it.

As we dont get Foxtel in our house I am relying on my mum and dad to tape it for me Tuesday nights and then Ruby and I watch it after her netball training on wednesday night. I am using the show as an invaluable opportunity to educate my daughter on the dangers a girl can face when her identity is based on looks and in this way I hope to get accross some very important entertainment .. oops, I mean messages.

Red Shoes

I love this image. I found it on etsy and I think I am going to have to buy a copy. Its by artist Kelly Angard and you can find more of her lovely work here: http://www.kellya.etsy.com/

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).