Inexpensive fun at home.

Todays afternoon fun took the form of:

A tent made of lounge cushions for Archie.

Extraction of a loose tooth with rusty barbeque tongs by Ruby.

Truly Scary.

Have spent a few years resisting the Hallowe'en thing on the grounds it is too American but, finally worn down, gave in this year and embraced a couple of the traditions. First making these Witchy cup cakes for the kids to decorate and second taking Archie and his friend Nicki from accross the road around our small cul de sac trick or treating (we reversed the trick or treat however by providing the treat ourselves - the witchy cupcakes).

Jazz Apple Cafe

Having to make an annoying unscheduled visit to the bank in civic last Friday (to fix up mistake THEY made) was sweetened by the discovery of a new cup cake cafe opened up a couple of door down from the bank. It's called the Jazz Apple Cafe and quite simply the cup cakes are INCREDIBLE. The kids chose Jaffa but I know somehow we will find a way to try them all - particularly keen to try the Jersey caramel and Lemon merangue. So rich Archie couldn't finnish his so I had to step in and do the job for him even though I knew the chocolate would give me a headache. The verdict: it was worth it.

High School Reunion 3

What a shock. High School Reunion committee has imploded with resignation of Chair. Reunion cancelled. Suggestions Chair has made off with Reunion Dinner fund. Say goodbye to $70 early bird payment. Reflect yet again on Chair's unhappy time at high school as most bullied student, his subsequent name change and motivation to be organising said reunion in first place.

Reflect on what this means for self. Find urgency to establish status career has lessened somewhat and decide to call off job hunt. Must be content as trophy wife for time being.

Inspired by Scandanavian Design.

Have constructed 1950s kidney shaped coffee table for dolls house out of balsa wood and recycled kabab skewers. (Yes, I know there may be some who think way too much time on her hands, get a job, yet still others may say You Go Girl!!! After all what better way of laying your family's financial future to waste than staying home all day constructing retro miniatures????

High School Reunion 2

Have committed to reunion and bought self a ticket ($70). Now all left is to decide what to wear on night and kickstart notable career that will leave old classmates in awe at rise in the world. Shipping Magnate being the obvious choice. To this end trotted off in heels on Tuesday to interview with recruitment agency. As have not been workforce participant for Seventeen years now was not sure what to expect but Melissah, the lovely agent who interviewed me and obviously did not think my CV too laughable, put me immediately at ease and we got right down to determining what area of workforce I might suit best. I didn't want to come right out and say "Shipping Magnate" but I did hint at it by saying "I see myself in Shipping" then proceeded to throw around words like "ilustrious" and "international".

Still not sure Melissah and I were on the same wavelength (she kept returning to words like "Human Resources" and "entry level") but now all left to do is wait by phone for job opening in selected feild. And as I say only three more weeks till reunion and to have established said career...

Vintage Shoe Find.

Amazing what you can find at the Salvos on a lucky day. Today these adorable vintage shoes for $5 (yes, I know - $5!!!). Black patent leather, a narrow square toe, grossgrain trim and cute bow. Plus with a chunky - yet somehow elegant - low square heel they are exactly what I was looking for. I could cry then that they secretly pinch my toes blue.

The Recruitment Agency.

Was horrified to find email in inbox this morning from the recruitment agency asking me to come in and have a chat with them about job possibilties. I mean I know I rang them on Friday and sent in my resume yesterday but whoever thought they would reply???? Did they read the resume? They must have missed the bit that said I haven't been in paid work for seventeen years. They must not have noticed the gaping Seven year gap of inactivity I provide no explanation for......

A whole lot of Mid Century Modern.

More from Open House. This time the owner of Roddy & Ginger.

High School Reunion.

Looming on the near horizon is my High School Reunion. We have been a lazy year and didn't do a ten year reunion - nor a twenty year - so now that it is actually happening you would think enough time had passed to be self actualized about the high school experience and embrace a return with it's opportunity to meet up with those I have not seen since school and yet seem to remember (most at least) quite vividly. Perhaps that's the problem???? Even though there is a handful of old students I still see and will accompany on the night I have found myself dreading the prospect ever so slightly and begun to think maybe I just wont go. But because I still live in Canberra (where I went to school and where the reunion will be) there is little excuse not to go. Or is there?

Here are some possible outs I have come up with. Each with it's own difficulties and advantages.

Excuse 1

Have won an overseas holiday and trip co incides with school Reuinion. To be truly convincing must actually leave the country. Funds an issue.

Excuse 2

Am on call at Canberra Hospital as nuero trauma specialist. Has added advantage of hinting at emminent and unexpected rise in the world since high school graduation.
Excuse 3
Fake own death.

Have only a month to orchestrate one of these.

making.

A card made to thank my acapuncturist Mei Wu. I like this because I think it actually looks like her. How many people can say they have been honored in a polymer clay collage? Hope she liked it.

Existential Crisis

My liitle boy starts school next year. I can't believe it. Only seems like yesterday I was driving home on Ruby's first day at school and thinking "Thankgod I've got a baby waiting at home". Now he's ready to spread his wings too. Of course ever the optimist I fear an existential crisis looming the minute I wave goodbye at the Kindergarten door and head home to an empty house. Even Col has warned I should have something in place - be it job or study or medication....

I ponder my options almost continually as my state of mind swings from happy to stay at home doing nothing (a fabulous new euphinism to describe a day in the service of a household's physical, mental, social and administrative needs) or get some paid work and much needed validation from the outside world or studyVisual Design part time - and fulfil a goal I've had all my life. One day I am telling Col I want him to do a CV for me and vowing to make appointments at an employment agency. The next I am down with an onslaught of infections and thankful we know how to manage as a family on one income, reconciling myself to a life much like the one I've got but with perhaps a little extra time to blog and surf the net. Then I am checking admissions dead lines for Visual design courses and cursing that I still have no assemblage (whatever that is) - or any portfolio at all for that matter. Whatever next year entails I hope I'm doing whatever I'm doing by choice and not because the rest was no longer viable.

Some Welcome Rain.

Glory be to Ruby who has broken the Canberra drought this week by painting the outdoor table in "Poppy".

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).

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.