muppinstuff

ten years ago

Ever since Suse did this one, I've been thinking about my life ten years ago and I'm in a memish sort of mood today, so here goes.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Ten years ago I was working in a cafe that I had owned with my mother and my sister for four or five years. I think we sold it in August so at about now, we would have been preparing to hand it over to the new owners, who were former employees. We had started the business as novices and the guys that bought it teached me to cook and run a commercial kitchen. In a lot of ways it was it was a great place (in others it wasn't but I'm not going to write about those) and it's a pity we never made more than a frugal living out of it. Thinking about it makes me feel more than a little nostalgic now. I'm not sure when the photo above was taken but it captures a certain light and mood I used to love, especially when having a break from the kitchen. The summer after the cafe I grew most of my food in my vegie patch (a good year for beans, basil, corn and rouge de marmande tomatoes) worked as a dishwasher and first or second cook and went to lots and lot of parties. Then early the next year, at the conclusion of my summer of love, I met Gerard at a club one night. And life took a very different course from then on.

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today
Remember to pay fees for next term at playgroup, attend to the various bits of bureaucracy that come with buying a house, go to a meeting about Friends of Coburg Olympic Pool's upcoming family funday, decide on what I am going to bake for cake stall at said fun day (I'm thinking gingerbread people from the Time Life Cooking of Germany book),cut Grace's claws fingernails.

5 snacks I enjoy
Biscuits, dry roasted unsalted almonds, those peanuts things with the sweet crunchy sesame crackery coating on the outside that my mum buys, liquorice in any form and fresh fruit, but only when it's nice and there are no biscuits around. Only joking, I do like fruit.

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire
Apart from travelling and giving up my day job so that I could immerse myself in creative pursuits and mothering, I think I'd like to set up useful businesses. The sort that help house the homeless, give jobs to the hard to employ, produce handmade toys to replace plastic crap, manufacture nourishing food, make spaces for community connection, reduce, re-use and recycle and generally make this part of the world a better place to live. Even if as businesses they just made enough to keep going. I'm sure it would all probably be harder than it sounds but one can dream.

5 places I have lived
Ringwood, Kew, Carlton, Camberwell and Brunswick. Apart from a short stint in Richmond in a house between the railway tracks and a share house in Fitzroy, these are the only places I have lived. Although I did get to visit my parents who were living in Port Moresby while I was at school in Kew.

Consider yourself tagged.

think I'll play too

There's been assorted posts rattling round my head all week, like the one about being quite late and lost on my way to work at an unfamiliar office. Good career move training that I was keen to do, but there I was stuck on top of a hill in a swirling cold mist with trucks screeching past in every direction. I nearly cried, but a passing jogger helped me with directions and no-one was mean to me when I got there. Actually they were really nice. Then there's the whole rave about being here on my own without G (he's away working for a week) and then the freedom slash loneliness of being at home all by myself the night Grace stayed at mums. Or I could have written about how it felt to ring a whole heap of solicitors and conveyancing services and say, hello my name's Janet and I bought a house on the weekend... That was odd. I felt so grown up. It was really quite good. Then there was the moment when I realised that the heater in the kitchen really is broken and that there's nowhere really warm at night to sit until it's fixed. I rang the real estate agents and requested emergency repairs which they weren't keen on but Grace has quite a cold (enough to be tired and cranky but not so ill that she's not getting into mischief) so I insisted.  The gas plumber showed me a trick to get one bar of it working until he can get a new tilt switch which is an improvement. I just realised that I told him I'd be home on the morning I have to go and see my new psychiatrist. The car has been fixed and cost more than I liked but less than I expected. And then there's my compulsion to be outside in the garden soaking it all up, reluctant to let it go but wanting more than anything to move to our new house as soon as possible. Perhaps it's a good thing I'm seeing my new doctor next week, everything's better than fine but wow, there is so much going on.

Anyway enough of the blathering, here's the game. I saw it over at Suse's last night when I should have been sleeping and at Leah's today when I should have been doing some housework. Now I'm going to jump into that deep hole that is flickr....

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

This is what I came up with...

1. Janet, 2. In the Spa, 3. Tiddeman House - MLC, 4. Green Womble House, 5. Julia Gillard, 6. Day 156: Red red wine, 7. Down Under III, 8. The Humble Pavlova, 9. Ok, I'm sorry! Go back to your novel., 10. Curves - Walking the Ramp!!, 11. A_CRW_5668_Fog_Road_jopix, 12. new banner

The Questions were:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

You can play too

Feminist motherhood

We didn't celebrate Mother's day here. Mostly because we're crap at most commercial type celebrations and Grace isn't old enough yet to bring home sweet gifts from school. So as kind of an internal celebration of motherhood, I re-visited the bluemilk's feminist motherhood meme I had in draft form from the draft pile. Gosh, I was pretty up about being a working mother when I first wrote this (just before going crazy), so there's been some re-wording.

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?
The personal is political. Dates me doesn't it?

So I've been a feminist for more than half my life now. Women's lib was around when I was at highschool: I remember my mother and her friends being angry, demanding their husbands do housework and nude sunbathing. There were a rash of divorces and more women started working outside the home, after the children started school. But I didn't have my own lightbulb moment until halfway through my second year at uni when my best friend dragged me along to the women's room for a feminist collective meeting. 1983. It was an exciting time, the birth of a women's magazine at Uni, various protests (including Cockburn Sound Women's peace camp), my history major had a big women's study component. But by the end of it,  I was so over the the judgements women made about other women's politics, the divisions, the pettiness. The post-modernism and post-structuralism. I still believed in the sisterhood and that personal is political, but it all seemed to get lost under layers of other meanings.

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?
My immediate and intense love for Grace as a baby and a young child, even when she is being bratmonster extraordinaire and I'm turning into a foulmouthed shrew on the inside while trying to be calm and reasonable on the outside. The new layers of love for my partner. How all those loves keep deepening and binding us together in evermore complex ways. Sometimes it feels like a trap, sometimes a liberation. Mostly it's just the way things are now. Oh, and the tiredness. And the responsibility.

I also remember being really surprised when Grace was a newborn that despite how important becoming a mother was supposed to be, I couldn't get a nurse to show me how to change her first nappy and there wasn't a comfortable chair by my bed to sit in while learning to breastfeed her. It became obvious even in my little bubble of baby bliss that the world around really made little space for mothers with young children.

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
I've become quieter and stronger. Feminism's more an inward assumption now, a core belief. Motherhood has connected me to other mothers, there's always children to talk about. And I think that affects my work quite profoundly. I also like other women (including those without children) more again.  I'm drawn in closer with my own mother and sister, and feel connected to a line of women before us. A rebirth of the sisterhood, if you will.

4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
Awareness (and maybe hairy armpits?). I try to let Grace be herself. She's allowed to make messes, bang around outside and get her clothes dirty, even the pretty ones. If we read a book that has men and women doing traditional tasks, we talk and joke about who does these tasks here. She knows that daddy does dishes, vacuuming and looking after Grace. And that sometimes she stays home with daddy while mummy goes work, or vice versa. That intellect or compassion isn't gender based. And we're trying to protect her for as long as we can from the bratz dolls, barbie videos and clothes that say "I'm going to be a skanky ho when I grow up" (of course if that's what she decides, no doubt I'll still love her and have to respect her life choices, etc etc) . We won't be able to do the total prohibition thing forever, if only because at some point, she'll have to be able to come to grips with how different versions of femaleness are presented in this culture. Hopefully though, we can shelter her for long enough that these things don't take her over and she'll find things that are real and wholesome that interest her. I'd love it if there was a strong and doing-good-things female prime minster as she approaches high school. Just so she knows that women can do that. And I'd like for her to have wild places where she can run free. Basically I'm hoping that her world will be one of possibility. I'd want the same for a boy too. And I wouldn't mind being a grandmother before I'm eighty. So I'm trying not to send the message that having kids ruins your life. Even when I'm super tired and shrewish.

5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother?
Yes and no. Sometimes I think about whether Grace likes pink because most girl clothes are pink and that's what she thinks girls wear. I haven't fought hard against that because it's just a colour, but I worry the rot is starting early. Othertimes I worry that I'm just not there enough, but I can't be and go to work at the same time. And G is just as capable of looking after her as I am. I worry whether I'll be able to guide her through the maze that is female identity. Mostly, I worry I could fail her in the future.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
I tend not to talk about it often. It's now so ingrained in me that I assume people would know that I'm a feminist. Just like any rational woman would be. Nonetheless I enjoy meeting women, especially of about my age who "get" the sort of things I was involved with in the past. And when women say gorgeous things like,  you can't do it all, and you can't have it all, well, not all at the same time anyway.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist?
I wanted a baby for so long and went through so much before Grace was born, that I don't think of it as sacrifice. Indeed I count myself as supremely lucky. However I don't belive in mothers (or fathers) martyring themselves in the ordinary course of events. This means Grace goes to bed with lights out by eight so she has enough sleep and we have parent time. We also work pretty hard at both having some time to ourselves, some time to do things other than parent, work and keep house.

8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner?
I'm the main income earner at the moment and although I had a bit over a year off after Grace was born, there are times I would prefer to be a full time stay at home mother. But with equality comes responsibility. And why should he be the one that has to work fulltime all the time?  In my femotopia we would both work part-time in family friendly workplaces, doing interesting useful work that paid really well. As it is, we share housework and parenting, although I do less now because I work outside the home more. G's a bit of a lefty ratbag himself and has always loved strong women, I think he assumes that any sane woman would be a feminist. He's also a dab hand with the vacuum cleaner and lawnmower. While looking after a child. Although I still do the shopping.

But it's about more than who looks after the children and who does what at home. It's about not taking in all those beliefs that one gender or gender role has a lesser or greater intrinsic value. And acting and talking that way. Which is easier said than done. We grew up in the sixties and seventies, there's been a revolution since then, but there are parts of my brain (and his) that missed being re-programmed. Like I said before, sometimes I feel as though I just don't mother enough. As an at home dad, G comes up against a whole other set of challenges.

If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?
I'm not, but I would have liked to have co-slept when Grace was little, but G was very uneasy about the idea. I remember talking to my GP about it, he was curious why we didn't as I was having issues moving Grace to her room across the hall. In the end, I thought that family harmony involved taking into account everybody's needs, so it just wasn't an option to push in this direction. In some ways, we're really scheduler or routine type parents anyway. Which seems to suit Grace. Athough we have made choices to have all Grace's care within our extended family for the first three or four years. She's been demanding lately too, especially of mummy cuddles, with blanket. These tend to come when there's stress about or when she's had a big language leap and the world is freaking her out. My inclination is to go with the mummy (and daddy) cuddles for as long as she needs them.

Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers?
No, but sometimes I feel very torn by the domestic world and all the other worlds in my life. That work life balance is a cackling joke I share with other mothers in the hallway between the tearoom and the photocopier. Sometimes I feel absent from my work life or that I am trying to run my home life by remote. It feels like women are expected to do more and more in less and less time. And look fabulous while doing it.

As a young feminist, I remember reading books exploring how to have children in other ways, test tubes, utopian childcare, equal parenting; because I knew I wanted kids but I really couldn't see how it would work. Not if I was going to do domething great. As it turned out, I did a lot of things that were fun, but less than great in a career, or any other sense. Not family friendly either. But in twenty years things have already changed. I remember when the idea of a stay at home dad was laughable (now I know of a few), when women had to wear stockings and skirts to work, in work places where sexual harrasssment was just part of the culture, when gay was barely tolerated at all, when it was expected and rarely challenged that women would leave work after having children, not to return until the kids went to school. When we never even had the conversation about a workplace being family friendly. I'm not saying that the revolution is over, far from it. Just that things have changed.

*****

The pictures are of my mother and grandmother, probably taken about 16 years ago, my mother would have been in her late 40s, my nan in her 70s before she started to get really sick. These are the last nice photos I have of them together.

Mothers of the blogosphere, happy belated Mother's day,

seven random things about me and pineapples

On Wednesday morning as I rushed out to work, there was a wonderful gift in my letterbox from Suse (thank you). Three beautiful old linen tea-towels. Featuring pineapples. On Thursday, late in the afternoon, I hung them on the line and pointed the camera, hoping to preserve their complete glory before they start doing the hard work of tea towels in this house (although the one with the surfer may be a wall hanging for a while).

Then I had the idea of a pineapple meme. How hard could it be? While on summer holidays, now so long ago that my memories are more faded than my tan, I was tagged by Schmutzie to do the seven random things meme. I didn't do it at the time because the internet connection at the sandy point internet cafe was at best flaky. And the computer was on a shelf in a passage between the kitchen and the door to the toilet. Where I  perched on a high stool, watched chips being cooked and thought about the beach or other holiday joy I was missing, sometimes trying to keep the small child out of mischief. Although I was only ever charged for 15 minutes, even when I'd been there for a good 45. Anyway, this meme continually circles blogland, somewhat like the playgroup cold/lurgy. It nonetheless has a certain charm. I like this meme, but it's hard separating out what is and isn't weird and /or random. Hence the pineapple thought. And I get to show you my new tea towels!

1. When I was a child, a dinner we sometimes had was ham steaks, or rather slabs of ham like meat, possibly out of a tin, grilled (as in broiled) and with tinned pinapple on top.  I loved it. Now it doesn't even seem like proper food.
2. Sometimes when I feel a bit liverish, tinned pineapple juice and soda or (diet) dry ginger does it for me.
3. I still make the boiled pineappled fruit cake that was my grandmother's recipe. It's probably from the fifties, uses a tin of crushed pinapple and a standard packet of mixed fruit. It's really very nice.
4. Back when I bought my own point and shoout camera, an olympus mju, I spent days racing around taking heaps of photos. Here's one of three pineapples against the window in the sunroom on a rainy day. Why would I have had three pineapples? Where they really cheap back then? Now they tend to be a bit of a treat. These tea towels made me immediately think of that photo. Gee I loved that camera. Pity it got stolen, not once but twice. The replacement also got stolen so I just gave up.
5. When I was in Paris and twenty-one, I remember being in a shop that sold dried fruit and asking for ananas in French. When I checked the spelling by googling, I got "Je suis un ananas ivre" which means I am a drunk pinapple.
6. I rather like fresh pinapple, but only if it's sweet enough not to hurt my mouth and has been cut up so that all the core and all the skin and all those little sharp bits are gone. Sometimes it improves sitting around for an hour or so cut up, but more often than not pineapple is just a waste of money. I think the only way to got a good one for sure is to have a greengrocer that tastes their own fruit and will tell you for sure. Like Cramer on Seinfeld said, fruit's a gamble.
7. Here's another picture of a pineapple, from about this time last year. I remember the fruity smell of this one on the kitchen bench. Rich and ripe. Attracting for those little flies that hang around fruit shops. I don't remember being dissapointed. Maybe I'll get another one tommorrow when I do the shopping.

So, whew, meme all about pineapples. Didn't think I could do it. Although I do have the sadly neglected blog about washing, which is soon to feature a delightful laundry related gift from another lovely blogger (scanner has started working again). I feel very lucky and smooshed by blogworld sometimes.....Thank you. Now I'm going to tag, because it's in the spirit of it all.

Girl on the Avenue
Alby Mangroves from new blog on the block, Life in General
Saha
Stomper Girl
Susan from Five and Two

Rules, you know, seven weird or random things about yourself. You can even re-cycle a previous seven or pick a theme. Tag another five people. But any or all of it, only if you want to.

25 things that shit me to tears

From Suse and Kim. Can't resist.

1. That all the cameras in the house use a different cord to upload images to the computer (3 cameras now, Grace's, my big one and the little one. And Gerard's phone). Surely, if camera cords were standard, you could be asked in the shop if you needed another one. This would mean less stuff in the world when you said no thank you, I already have one.
2. There is too much stuff in the world. Just way too much stuff.
3. Badly written instructions. The ones from the new telly (justification, the old TV was from the eighties) are astonishingly bad. Fantastic TV, just took me several days to figure out how to set it all up. I know instructions can be good because, once upon a time, I used to write instructions.
4. That the house doesn't clean itself.
5. And that no-one has invented little dirt eating robots or similar.
6. Buying a dress on sale that I liked when it was full price, thinking yes, it's a simple little alteration and then three days later it's still making me swear (finished now, but not as good as I thought it would be and now I am intimate with how badly it was made in the first place which also shits me).
7. The crick in my neck because my computer screen is a little high and I haven't got around to getting a proper office chair and asking G to cut down my wooden stand for the computer. He's happy to do it, being good like that. I just keep forgetting to ask (already done now, thanks G it's so much better).
8. The heat. Of course.
9. When people leave the back door open on 42 degree days allowing hot wind to blow into the house.
10. Or don't open it all up when the cool change arrives and I'm not here.
11. That I can't seem to explain how to manage this house the in heat. I know how because I've lived here for a very long time (nearly twenty years).
12. Certain aspects of the division of labour pertaining to childcare when we're both home, especially following the afternoon sleep. Best not go into detail here (grits teeth, there's been a discussion, and it's somewhat better).
13. That I allowed myself to become as manic as I did. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm not supposed to blame myself and all that. But still.
14. Having to take pills that make me feel I've had part of my brain removed and and want to throw up. It could be worse, I suppose. And they do make feel chilled (without the need for weed, because I haven't medicated that way since when I started wanting to become a mother and because drugs are bad mnnn).
15. That drugs from your doctor are OK but the fun ones aren't. When I'm in my seventies I'm going to do some serious partying.
16. Not ever being able to go to the toilet by myself at home (except when she's sleeping) or without someone little howling outside the closed door.
17. Having to go back to work to be able to go to the toilet by myself.
18. Having to go back to work (although I'd be really stuffed if I were a casual worker, more on that later).
19. The rainbow lorikeets in next doors almond tree that screech in every afternoon and every morning at five. Causing me to retreat to the couch in the loungeroom for another couple of hours sleep. Often referred to as those bloody parrots. I love the wattle birds, yellow honeyeaters, pigeons, crows and the fruit bats that visit but seriously, I want to throw rocks at those lorikeets.
20. Not being able to eat as much chocolate weetbix slice as I really want. Because I shouldn't and because I feel nauseous from the pills.
21. But still doing it anyway. The pills, despite everything, enhancing the craving for sweet carbs.
22. Being fat in the first place. Not getting the thin genes. Hoping Grace has the thin genes.
23. Trying to let go of some of my issues around food and fat (I've been reading Shapely Prose since blue milk linked there, and is it ever challenging, even when you think you've been a fat accepting feminist for a long time).
24. That to feel better physically, especially with the medication, I really am going to have to excerise (some swimming last week, it was great once I started) and go with the Healthy at Every Size thingo.
25. The way the lock on the passenger side of the car needs a special touch to be opened. Quite a feat when it's hot, you have a two and three quarter year old, a big bag of stuff and you're on a main road or in a carpark.

Well, there you go. Do I feel better? Yes. Thank-you.

One of the silly memes that's been doing the rounds

Writing is good for me now but slow. Oh, so slow. And this one took forever in dribs and drabs because I'm trying not to spend too much time on the computer. From here, here and here and maybe more, but I forget.

What kind of soap is in your bathtub right now?
Pears translucent. It doesn't make me itch, smells faintly herbal and you can put the old slither of soap on the new bar so you never waste any. I like that. And you can buy it at the supermarket.

Do you have any watermelon in your refrigerator?
Yes, I do. In a bowl, cut up and ready to eat.

What would you change about your living room?
The yucky paint finish on the window frames and curtains. Which if it were my house I'd strip and oil/varnish. Or paint white. For a start. Let's not talk about the carpet.

Are the dishes in your dishwasher clean or dirty?
We don't have a dishwasher. Shocking, I know. G reckons he always does the dishes so we won't need one when we move into our new house (if and when).

What is in your fridge?
Milk (dairy and soy), orange juice, diet lemon cordial, black currant cordial, diet dry ginger, soda, cold water, beer, chocolate. Lettuce, cucumbers, mushrooms (always), carrots and eggplant, bread, muffins, butter, ghee, nuttelex, tofu (blech), vegie burgers (double blech) sushi su, molasses, yeast, pickled ginger, peanut sauce, mayo, mustard, various other condiments I forget. And watermelon.

White or wheat bread?
Various kinds of semi nutritious but spongy sandwich bread. Helgas or the spelt one, but I'd prefer natural tucker or homemade. Yeah, yeah. One day I 'll try this one. Doing the messy bit outside.

What is on top of your refrigerator?
The manky recipe book from when I had the cafe, my ideas and clippings recipe book. A plastic tray of glad bags, bin liners, gladwrap etc. Dust. Many egg cartons waiting to be recycled.

What color or design is on your shower curtain?
Black flowers on a white background. I made it myself from material I found at the opshop. Love it heaps, everyday. Needs washing.

How many plants are in your home?
One. A ponisettia that was a gift from the leadership at work. Very sweet. But as I rule I don't have potted plants inside anymore because I forget to care for them. Same in the backyard, anything in a pot has to be very hardy and live off rainwater. Even then, they can be shortlived.

Is your bed made right now?
Yes. We have doonas. So it's a shake and a flick. Beds are always made once everyone is up. 

Comet or Soft Scrub?
Dunno.

Is your closet organized?
Yes. And becoming more so. Just yesterday I moved some items that were borderline into the suitcase on top of the wardrobe. If I don't wear them this summer, off to the opshop they go. I'd rather have fewer things but like them. 

Can you describe your flashlight?
Yes, and there's  more than one. But do you think I could tell you where they are?

Do you drink out of glass or plastic most of the time at home?
Glass. Duralex. In theory unbreakable, just like in theory, communism works. But there's still some plastic bubby cups. And the elmo cup for Grace's afternoon soymilk and apple snack.

Do you have iced tea made in a pitcher right now?
No, but I'm rather partial to ice tea in hot weather. Made with liptons, lemon and mint from the garden. And not too sweet. With ice, in the plain jug or the blue jug with matching glasses for special occasions. 

If you have a garage, is it cluttered?
Yes, but it's supremely organised clutter. It's really G's space, although I'm welcome there.

Curtains or blinds?
Curtains with insulation. From the opshop and coburg market and remade (by me) to fit our windows. Essential in summer and winter.

How many pillows do you sleep with?
One, although there are two each on the bed. Mostly I chuck the other onto the floor but sometimes I have two. Sometimes two under my head and sometimes one down the side like when I was pregnant. Even though I don't need it. Oh, just fascinating I know.

Do you sleep with any lights on at night?
No. If I have to get up for some reason I trun one on. Or bump into doorframes and swear alot.

How often do you vacuum?
As little as possible. Mostly G does it, and he vacuums under furniture (which I'm slack about), although doesn't knock all the cobwebs down which I like to do first.

Standard toothbrush or electric?
Standard.

What color is your toothbrush?
Green and white.

Do you have a welcome mat on your front porch?
Yes.

What is in your oven right now?
Nothing.

Is there anything under your bed?
No. It's very low to the ground.

Chore you hate doing the most?
Anything that involves getting my hands wet. Cleaning the bathroom. On the other hand I quite like cleaning the windows and bleaching the plates, if I get around to it.

What retro items are in your home?
Most of my life is retro. Except for my computer which most definetely is not. 

Do you have a separate room that you use as an office?
Yes, we call it the study. It's where we nerd out, G has his online chess, I have my blogs and flickr, and Grace is learning how to play toddler computer games.

How many mirrors are in your home?
Nine. Not including compacts, but including the rear view mirror on G's desk and another down low in the bathroom. I like mirrors for reflecting light in old houses with smallish windows. All of ours are old and have character. And there's two or three in the backyard too.

What color are your walls?
Off white. Some rooms have a greenish tinge. We used paint left over from my dad's reno and that we found in the hard rubbish. I figured out all the colours, had it re-tinted and did some more remixing at home. The windows frames in the sunroom and the scullery are painted a dark gold. 

Do you keep any kind of protection weapons in your home?
No...ooh. 

What does your home smell like right now?
Window cleaner. Freshish (inner city) air.

Favorite candle scent?
Something very subtle. Fresh air.

What kind of pickles (if any) are in your refrigerator right now?
Polski Ogorki. Although I can't find my favourite brand anymore.

What color is your favorite Bible?
Um, I don't have a bible I don't think. Although there might be one around somewhere. If I wanted to look something up, I'd use the internet.

Ever been on your roof?
Yes, on the sunroom roof some fifteen years ago. G has said that he will build me a sunset viewing platform in the new house (if and when). 

Do you own a stereo?
Yes, although it's been amalgamated with G's music equipment. We are wired for sound in ways I don't understand.


How many TVs do you have?
One. And the h-hold is really bad, meaning it flickers and has to be adjusted. And there's a pink stripe down one side. I can barely watch it, which gives me more time on the internet. We're in negotiation with a friend of father christmas at the moment. So we'll see.

How many house phones?
One. Two mobiles.

Do you have a housekeeper?
Oh, I wish.

What style do you decorate in?
Me and G style.

Do you like solid colors in furniture or prints?
Mostly solids, but I like a patterned carpet. Don't mind the odd bit of wallpaper or lino either.

Is there a smoke detector in your home?
Der, of course there is.

In case of fire, what are the items in your house which you’d grab if you only could make one quick trip?
I don't think I'd care, I'd just want eveyone and the cat out and safe. The rest is only stuff.

And thank you all for the well wishes. You're all very sweet.

Just call me Dipsy

I had planned to write about feminist motherhood this week, but with one thing and another, my head isn't quite up to it. It's been warm, almost hot, with some rain; the sort of weather that makes vodka cruisers slip down all too easily. So, after being tagged by Marjorie and Mary Beth, I'm going to try and think of seven random things. And maybe go back and fix some of my appalling spelling mistakes on posts past.

1. Every now and then I get a hankering for those sweet pre-mixed drinks. The sort that are so nice that I'm never ever going to let Grace taste them. Much nicer and cheaper than the UDLs of my teenage years. And so deadly.

2. The other day as I was in the dentist's chair having my root canals filed (hence the current prediliction for alcohol to wash down the panadol) looking up at the tatty poster of an Australian rural homestead surrounded by lots of junk affixed to the ceiling and trying not to ask for a third anasthetic shot, the dentist stopped working and said to me, you have quite a small mouth don't you... aga, ya, I replied. Next time you come in, he said, I'll get a block so it doesn't hurt so much to hold your mouth open. After that he was very gentle, holding my jaw in a particularly nice way, explaining what was happening next and giving me lots of breaks in the treatment. I think I quite like this dentist. He's older than me and reminds me the kind and also reasonably priced dentist I saw all through my childhood and early adult years.

3. I love watching the teletubbies on video with Grace when I get the chance. The toddlers and pre-schoolers are natural and charming, portrayed as the real kids they are. A far cry from the irritating dancing girls on the Wiggles. Although we're more into the book and the computer game at the moment. At the beginning of the book (currently on very high rotation at bedtime) Grace names each of the tubbies, Tinky Winky, Mummy (Dipsy), Laa-Laa and Po. I've been the green teletubby for quite some time. Is it a shape thing or a colour thing? Who knows, who cares. The teletubbies all live together in an earth dome, they're kind to rabbits and butterflies, they have a magic windmill, are technologically advanced, not stuck in rigid gender roles and they all love each other. And then there's that fabulous nineties raver aesthetic...

4. Today I made a lemon tart and I think I've worked out why the crust was soggy. But I'll have to make another tart to test my theory.... mmm tart.

5. When I get tense and stressed, not only do I need to bake, but I need to live in a clean house. Today I knocked down months worth of spider webs and cleaned out the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. There were lotions and potions that had expired in 2004. I have a feeling there may also be some window cleaning coming up.

6. The election is really pissing me off. If I hear the phrase working families one more time, I think I might throw rocks at the TV. The only sensible thing I've heard so far was in the dentist chair. An academic on the radio was talking about how government needs to start spending big on social infrastructure (like health and education) for the long term instead of making short term promises to attract small pockets of swinging voters. Personally, I think there needs to be a shift in thinking. Away from a consumer fuelled growth ecomomy towards a service based ecconomy of care and kindness. Where shopping centres are all like the new look Greensbourough Plaza.

7. Although I'm shallow enough that I might vote for a party that promises super fast broadband for everyone (as opposed to a party that promises, not only a job for all those who want one, but also the job and career you want, huh??? as if that's something that's deliverable?) We only have super slow broadband around here and apparently Telstra already has the infrastructure to provide faster broadband but hasn't switched it on. I don't quite understand the mechanics of it, but apparently it's not that difficult.

Gosh, I meant to be all light hearted. At least I've moved a bit on from the big moan and groan session I had planned on Thursday night. It must be the effect of a quiet weekend at home. And the cruisers and breezers. Feminist motherhood next week. Absolutely.

Once upon a time I used to read books

Whew, I've just finished my list of houses to inspect tomorrow, eight in total, but I think we'll only make it to three or four. Which is more than enough. I've been thinking and talking about the stinky house quite a lot this week and I'm planning to go to the auction as well, just to see what happens. We're not afraid of grot, and there's part of me that thinks that if we got that house (or one like it) for the right price, it'd be worth doing up and we'd end up with a nice house to live in, in a good location. But not this one, we haven't done enough homework and it's not something you'd want to go into unprepared.  Enough about houses.

Anyway as it's Friday night, I did the unread book meme, which I nicked from only books all the time . Not that I really read novels at the moment. When I thought about it, I realised that I'm still reading, but it's books about photography, or websites about house design. And blogs of course. There just isn't space in my head right now for more. Not until the holidays, when I'll trawl the internet for the hot books of the year...   

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. So, the books I've read are in bold, the ones I started but couldn't finish in italics, what I couldn’t stand has a strike through.  Those I've read more than once have an asterisk*. I'm meant to underline any on my to read list, but that seems a little futile at this point. It comforts me that I've read more on this list than I would have thought. Although some of them were school reads.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife (I read about it on the internet and it ended up being my favourite read of the year)
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin*
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984**
Angels & demons
The inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and sensibility**
The picture of Dorian Gray**
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon** (I love this book)
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit, but I quite liked the movies
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth (this was great, on my re-read list once it comes back from Mum)
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers

So there you go. Reading. Once upon a time.

In other news, my camera has finally died. Sob. I took it into the city this afternoon to see whether it was the recharging lead or the battery but the repair man seemed to think it was something in the camera. We tried new leads, new batteries and the old brick just wouldn't fire up. He seemed to think it would be very expensive to fix. It's not all bad news though, new camera plans are in the offing but it may be a week or two. So no pictures of houses, or wallpaper... for a while.

by any other name

I haven't done a Friday night meme for a while, and I miss them. Memes seem to be a bit out of fashion at the moment, but I love them. I keep meaning to do one each week, but of course I get waylaid, by life and other diversions. This one's from Kerryn, I think she might like the odd meme too.

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car)
Sophie Commodore. Sounds kind of disco, which our car definitely is not.
2. My gangsta name (ice cream flavour plus cookie, or biscuit)
Chocolate Gingernut. Mmm maybe not. How about Coconut Yo-Yo? Not much better, I don't think.
3. My fly girl name (first letter of first name, first three letters of last name)
J Igg. Yep.
4. My detective name (favourite colour, favourite animal)
Green Elephant. This.just.keeps. getting. better.
5. My soap opera name (middle name, city of birth)
Margaret Melbourne. Boring.
6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name, first two of your first name)
Gri-Ja. Hey-yah, does karate like move in slow motion... I am Gri-Ja.
7. My superhero name (second favourite colour, favourite drink, add “the”)
The Pink (diet lemon) Soda.
8. My Nascar name (first two names of my two grandfathers)
Ernest George.
9. My stripper name (favourite perfume, favourite sweet)
Soap Chocolate. Or maybe Lavender Snake. As in sour snakes and lavender because I quite like the smell. Can't wear perfume anymore because it makes my eyes water. Did I used to wear Joy? Joy Snake. That sounds good. No, it was another perfume in an opaque blue bottle with a maroon stopper. It will come to me.... yes? (Edited later to add, Doh, It's Lou Lou, thank you Melinda! Lou Lou Snake, oh yes.)
10. My witness protection name (mother’s and father’s middle names)
Grace William.
11. My weather anchor name (fifth grade teacher’s name, a major city beginning with the same letter)
Graham Gympie.
12. My spy name (favourite season/flower)
Spring Heliotrope.
13. Cartoon name (favourite fruit plus garment you’re wearing, with an “ie” or “y” added)
Cherry Uggsie. Actually, I quite like that one.
14 Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast plus favourite tree)
Pancakes The Gums in The Park.
15. Your rockstar tour name (favourite hobby plus weather element, with “the”)
The Sewing Rain at Dusk. Or The Gardening Sunshine. Rock out.

Well. There you go. Now I can go to bed and be up bright and early for househunting day. Which starts off with a visit to what I've nicknamed The Stinky House. Because it really smells. So bad that Grace ran screaming into the street last week. Until another bubby turned up. And then she wanted to play in the old sheds out the back, one of which looks like a birdhouse. It's pretty bad, but it's in a good location for us and I can see potential charm once the carpet has been lifted, the odour neutralised (there are chemicals for this) and the kitchen issues addressed. Will try and take photos. We went to an auction last week of a house I knew in my heart would go way above our limit, despite the agent telling me otherwise. I know, they want a crowd at the auction, which is fair enough because they are in the business of selling houses and if I was selling at auction, that's what I'd want.  Absolutely fantastic location, needed heaps of work but had period charm and great wallpaper. I wish I'd taken a picture. Anyway. For a heartstopping moment I thought it would go just beyond our reach, giving me hope for that particular location. But the bids just kept coming. I have to remember that wishful thinking is not the best use of our househunting time and reframe my expectations. Our house is out there.

If you're happy and you know it

It feels so very un-australian (a favourite cliche) but I think I'm going to have to write a list of things that make me happy and/or that I am grateful for. Because I'm over myself and just can't think about still having a cold or that I should go to work on Monday and therefore I have to feel better. (Sticks fingers in ears and goes la la la la). I also need something to go between the potty portraits. So:

1. Spending time in an undergound, perhaps to be heritage listed (really) ladies room taking self-portraits. Not so sure about the results yet, but it was fun, in a seedy sort of way.

2. This picture. It makes me happy. Eventhough, when G turned up with this particular toy, I thought to myself, we really don't need another thing in the backyard. He finds all sorts of abandoned playthings on his walks, brings them home and fixes them up. I do like that about him though, it's quite endearing. Grace really likes it too.

3. My new to me Saba fine black 100% wool ribbed jumper. Below hip length with long, long raglan sleeves. So very me. From Savers, the day after the sale. Destiny.

4. Taking Grace to the zoo. It was so exciting catching the tram and seeing the trains. Of course she had to sit on the elephant statue, and of course we had to take her photo. (There was a queue almost). However, this is the first time she's been interested in the animals, joining the line of toddlers standing against the glass watching the primates. It was worth the tantrums at the end. We're still having excited breathy conversations about the tigey tigers, 'raffes, elephants and the butterfies eating. It's opened up a whole new world of books too.

5. The way you can see the blossom give way to fruit on the apricot tree and it's been raining. The longer it rains, the better.

6. Eating lettuce, radishes and snow peas from our neglected vegetable patch. And parsley, spring onions, garlic shoots, rosemary and thyme. And the sage is about to bloom. It gives me great pleasure to have beds of useful plants that are also pretty.

7. The thought of starting a new garden. There may well be months and months of househunting and being in a weird sort of limbo first but that's OK. I'm ready to begin again, I have my list for tomorrow. I have a feeling eight's too many, three or four might be more realistic, but I'll see how we go.

8. Orville has a new friend.

9. Thanks to modern medicine, my tooth no longer hurts. It's been hurting (just a dull ache) so long that I had forgotten what a totally painfree mouth felt like. As soon as I can breathe properly through my nose, I'm going to book that root canal. Yep, I'm really pleased about that. Why did it take me so long to commit?

10. Our local supermarket has this cheap wine that's not too bad (except the shiraz cabernet which is a stinker IMO) and there's been really yummy strawberries, also cheap and have you tried the new Coles belgian chocolate (so called) with mint chips? Mmm. At least the strawberries are good for you.