tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59794553728969733312024-03-20T05:47:55.063+08:00The Muddle-Headed MammaHerein lie the tales of a muddle-headed housewife: daydreamer, philosopher, misadventurer extraordinaire. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-75025856248260329772015-01-06T17:22:00.000+08:002015-01-16T18:24:49.679+08:00Every Yuletide, I do Wonder<span style="color: #274e13;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #274e13;">All over town, in every town, Christmas trees are coming down and Christmas lights are twinkling less and less as the days go by. In our home, we took down the tree today as we have always done traditionally in my family on Epiphany, on the twelfth day after Christmas. As we packed the decorations back into their boxes for another year, I realised that if I was going to write a Christmas-themed post, I had better do so today before everyone well and truly moves on from Christmas and plunges into whatever 2015 has in store.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">I had actually intended to write this several days before Christmas. I won't bore you with the details of why that didn't happen, suffice to say that I got swept up in the silly season and before I knew it the twelve days of Christmas had disappeared.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Today the Orthodox churches make their yuletide celebrations and I must confess that every year, as I'm running around the shops like a mad woman in the week before Christmas, I find myself wondering why the rest of the western world doesn't do the same. It has always struck me as rather cruelly ironic that the very same gifts that I buy the day before Christmas at full price go on sale the day after Christmas for about half the price. Ditto all the Christmas paraphernalia.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">Each year, I mention to the matriarchs in my family that it would make considerably more sense to do our gift giving on 6th January rather than 25th December because we could all do all of our shopping at the sales. Each year they nod and murmur in agreement, but we go on year after year, spending like drunken sailors prior to the 25th and then lamenting that we have no money left to spend at the post-Christmas sales. Oh well, I suppose if we did all postpone our present opening until Epiphany then the shops would soon catch on and shift the start of the sales until 7th January, wouldn't they? In the meantime, I suppose all this goes to show why gift vouchers have become such popular presents!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Long before I associated Christmas with financial predicaments, I was still never short of things to ponder when each time that tinseled time of year rolled round. As a child who loved the atlas just as much as I loved the anticipation of Father Christmas' annual visitation, I would often ask my Mother how it was possible that one man could possible visit the house of every child in the entire world in just one night. Mum, always quick off the mark, explained that different countries have different time zones from each other and therefore his task was not quite as momentous as it seemed.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">That satisfied my curiosity for a while - until I became aware of just how many people there actually were in the world and that time differences or not, Saint Nick could not possible get around to all of them in twenty-four hours. But Mum didn't miss a beat. "He manages to do it", she told me, "because not every child in the world has been good and he only has to visit the children who've been good". (This was followed by something along the lines of "So you'd better be extra-specially good, hadn't you?"!)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">My other main childhood Christmas contemplation was also related to geography. I loved the carol <i>We Three Kings of Orient Are </i>but was greatly frustrated that none of the atlases in the house listed <i>Orientare </i>in the index. When I eventually asked my Mother where it was located and she set me straight on the matter, I remember feeling seriously displeased with the creator of the carol for having fooled me for so long.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">Now speaking of being displeased, according to an article I read in <i>The West Australian</i> newspaper just after Christmas, a recent survey conducted by <i>Gumtree </i>found that somewhere in the vicinity of 20 million unwanted Christmas presents were received in Australia last year (valued at an estimated $520 million). Apparently the listings on Gumtree increased by 25% in the days after Christmas as people put their undesired pressies on the second hand market. Reading this article only reinforced my resolve to move our family's present-swapping day to Epiphany, as sites like <i>Gumtree </i>and <i>Ebay </i>are swarming with bargains in the days after Christmas. However, the thing that struck me most about this article was the paragraph that read: "About 70 per cent of those quizzed in the poll said they knowingly bought 'undesirable' gifts".</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Who would <i>knowingly </i>buy someone an unwanted gift?? I asked myself. And then I read on. "Work colleagues and in-laws are the worst offenders for unwanted presents under the Christmas tree", the article stated. Ah yes, I can relate to that. Two years ago, I received a bottle of wine from my Kris Kringle at work. It looked like a very nice bottle of wine indeed. I just happened to be seven months pregnant at the time. And as for the in-laws part? I'm not even going to go there (but hey, if you've ever received a used, useless, hideous or down-right insulting gift from an in-law, I'd love to know about it!)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">I'd venture to say that chocolate is one of those gifts you can't go wrong with (except for that aforementioned Kris Kringle of mine, who also gave me a packet of Tim Tams, even though everyone in the workplace filled out a form before our KKs were allocated stating if we were allergic to anything. I wrote that I was allergic to gluten, but I suppose my KK either didn't know what that meant or else was trying to poison me). But chocolate, on the whole, gets two thumbs up from me. It's the perfect gift for people you don't know very well. It says <i>I'm thinking of you,</i> without assuming to know someone better than you actually do. It's also perfect for re-gifting. I secretly find myself wondering every year how many boxes of chocolates are passed around the neighbourhood before they are actually eaten. When a friend or a neighbour pops in with an unexpected box of choccies, you can just go to the pantry where you've stored all the other boxes of choccies you've been given and whip it out with a flourish and say "I've got something for you too!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">I also wonder if some of those boxes ever make it back to their original buyer. You know, if my neighbour buys me a box and I re-gift it to the school secretary and she re-gifts it to her neighbour who re-gifts it to her son's basketball coach who re-gifts it to her ironing lady who also happens to be the neighbour who bought it for me. I guess as long as the chocolate gets eaten in the end and everyone feels loved, it's all good. More re-gifting equates to less consumerism too of course, so keep passing those chocolates round - it's win-win</span>.<br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">One of my most profound Christmas ponderings would definitely have to be about my own personal consumption of chocolate. Every year, as I inevitably find myself eating my own weight in chocolate over the course of a single week, I ask myself if it is better or worse for my health to eat my annual supply of the stuff in just one week or to ration it out throughout the year. Unfortunately for my waistline, I have never come to a finite conclusion on that matter and continue to steadily consume it throughout the year as well as devouring it in frightening quantities at the year's end.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">In all seriousness though, I do wonder every year, when I'm wrapping presents at the last minute and rushing out in sweltering summer heat to get that present for that person I accidentally forgot to buy for (there's always one) why I don't get myself more organised. Ever since I officially became an 'adult' and started buying gifts myself, I have promised myself every year without fail that the following year I will be more organised. I will start the present hunt early. I will be so organised that I will get all of my shopping out of the way during the July sales. Well actually, I did that one year. I bought all the presents months in advance, hid them cunningly in all sorts of improbable hiding spots where no-one was ever going to find them and then, the week before Christmas when I went to dig them all out to wrap them, discovered that I had forgotten where most of them were. I turned the house upside-down, but still didn't manage to find them all and ended up running to the shops, as per usual, at the last minute to re-buy presents for nieces and nephews I had already bought for (If you ever want anything hidden good and proper, I'm your woman).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">I suppose it's time to wrap up this Christmas post and forget about anything and everything to do with Christmas until the very last minute next year because there really is no point kidding myself that I'm going to be organised next time either. I'd just like to say though, that I don't leave Christmas to the last minute because I dislike the season. I love Christmas. I know not everyone does though. I know a few people who wish they could skip the whole day altogether.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">So here's the funny thing. It's actually possible. My parents had a friend who moved from Australia to the United States for work. One year, he boarded a plane in California in the late afternoon of 24th December to fly home to Sydney for Christmas. The flight took fifteen hours, so in theory he should have landed in Australia on Christmas Day. But there is a 19 hour time difference between his point of departure and arrival and so when he touched down in Sydney it was actually the early hours of 26th December and he had missed Christmas altogether!</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">I suppose if you really <i>really </i>loved Christmas you could always do that flight back the other way. If you timed your departure right, you could end up having two Christmases in one year.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13;">Regardless of whether you'd rather two Christmases or none at all, I hope you had a wonderful end to 2014 and that 2015 is your best year yet.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000;">Loads of belated Christmas cheer,</span><br />
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<b>What do you wonder about at Christmastime? Do you re-gift? Have you ever received a Christmas present that you hated? Are you brave enough to tell me you have deliberated bought an 'undesirable' gift?? </b></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-5469292135754383462014-12-03T13:58:00.002+08:002014-12-03T19:26:28.074+08:00All that Glitters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lately, my son has been mentioning some remarks that have been made by his peers regarding people's wealth and material possessions - or lack thereof. These comments are usually along the lines of how big somebody's house is, how impressive their car is or how much their shoes cost. I wouldn't go as far as to say these remarks disturb me, but they definitely irk me at times, especially considering my son, who was perfectly happy with our house when we first moved into it, has began making comments about how embarrassing it is to live in such a small home.<br />
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He's also convinced that certain members of his peer group have begun leaving him out of things "because they're rich and we're poor". When I accompanied his class on an excursion recently, I actually heard one child in the group I was sitting with at lunchtime announce: "Have you guys seen (such and such's) house?" in a tone that implied repulsion. He was not taking about my son, but it did give me an insight into the kind of talk Ben has been describing to me.<br />
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This attitude actually surprises me because this is the lowest socio-economic area we have lived in and yet it's the first time Ben has felt inferior at school on the basis of tangible wealth. Clearly, the kids' comments are reflective of their parents' and possibly precisely because this is a low socio-economic area, some people feel that they have something to prove.<br />
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I've done my best to explain to Ben that while our house may be small, we are rich in other ways - in our health, our family and our friends, in the knowledge we have gained through our travels and the strength we have gained by overcoming our adversities. It's a difficult thing though sometimes to explain to a ten-year-old who wants nothing more at this age than to fit in with his peers. I try to help him understand that money doesn't automatically make people happy, or kind or wise.<br />
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A few days after I had been on that school excursion, a friend of mine came over for dinner. She always has interesting stories to tell me and that night she told me a story apropos of wealth which I am unlikely to forget.<br />
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For the past year, my friend has been employed as a clinical psych registrar, a job that satisfies her intellectually but which is also enormously demanding. While we were eating, she mentioned that there are times when she finds herself wishing she were still employed at <a href="http://www.perthmint.com.au/">The Perth Mint</a> - the job she had while she was a uni student. She had no 'take-home' work and no emotional attachment to the job the way she does now.<br />
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It was also an interesting place to work, she said, because each day an array of varied people would walk through the doors. There were tourists from a range of nations, buyers of bullion and connoisseurs of coins. And then there were those who came to peruse the opulent jewellery available for purchase and who had, quite often, too much money to know what to do with it.<br />
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Now my friend is restricted in terms of what she can divulge about her current job due to client confidentiality, but there is no reason why she couldn't recount some of her tales from her days at The Mint, including one about a lady who fitted right into the category of customer most recently mentioned.<br />
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Being a uni student and living away from home, my friend didn't have an enormous disposable income, but still managed to look fantastic (this is my own observation, not part of the story she told me!). Anyway, even though The Mint offered its employers generous staff discounts she still usually wore jewellery bought elsewhere because, despite the discount, the items were still astronomically expensive.<br />
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She had a pair of earrings that she often wore to work because they went well with her uniform and the 'look' she was expected to portray. They were a purchase she had made in a bargain jewellery franchise in a shopping centre which set her back $10. One particular day, she was wearing these earrings at work when a woman came into the jewellery section and began slowly examining the items behind the glass cabinets. My friend had seen her in there before and knew she had money and knew how to spend it.<br />
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The woman moved towards the cabinet where pairs of earrings sold for $20 000 and above. She asked to see one of the pairs. She took the box, looked closely at the earrings, took one out, looked in the mirror, shook her head and put it back in the box. She proceeded to repeat this process about half a dozen times, each time with a different pair of earrings priced at $20 000 or more.<br />
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Finally, the woman gave an exasperated sign and said: "I just can't find what I'm looking for. Can you show me where the ones you're wearing are kept? What I <i>really </i>want is a pair just like that".<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-81288563574322130552014-11-26T07:42:00.000+08:002014-11-26T20:00:27.172+08:00Six things I want my son to Know {a guest post}<br />
Today, I'm thrilled to be hosting Tarana Khan as a guest blogger on <i>The Muddle-Headed Mamma</i>. Tarana is an expat from India who now lives in Dubai where she writes her blog, <a href="http://www.sandinmytoes.tk/">Sand in my Toes</a>. She is the mother of a three-year-old boy and her guest post is an insight into the life lessons she aspires to teach her son. I loved reading Tarana's list of <i>Six things I'd want my son to know - </i>it's full of wisdom, integrity and conviction and is written in the gentle but confident voice that characterises Tarana's writing and draws me to her work.<br />
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<b>It's not rarely that I wonder how my son will be as a grown up</b>. I wonder what kind of man he will be, and what women will think of him. Will he be sensitive in his relationships? I wonder what kind of friend he will be. Will he be a sincere and trustworthy buddy?
I really don't know. And even if I make a little effort every day to teach him a few life lessons, I cannot predict how he will turn out as an adult. It is my belief that people are born with a certain type of personality, which remains the same whether they are children or adults - except under unusual or unexpected circumstances.
So I wonder. If there are some things I could tell him when he was much older, what would they be?
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<b>These are the six things I would like to tell him: </b></h3>
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1. There's only one mom</h4>
I'm not being a possessive mother by saying this, or being jealous of future girlfriends. I just don't want him to expect any other woman to 'mother' him. There is a trait common in first-born kids, especially boys - they are pampered by their moms, and feel that they should be treated that way by every woman they form a relationship with. I'm not going to stop pampering him for sure, but I'd like him to know that no other woman will put up with tantrums, or pay such close attention to his wants, forgetting her own.
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2. Respect men and women alike</h4>
Yes, women should be respected. But I don't want my son to grow up thinking that there is an inherent difference between men and women that we feel the need to emphasise respecting women. Respect should be given when it is deserved, whether it is towards men or women. I hope there is an improvement in gender equality in future, and women shouldn't have to ask for special treatment to be treated as equals, as they have to now.
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3. You can't always win</h4>
With men, there is always so much focus on winning, and everything becomes a conquest or a race. I would like my son to know that he may not always 'win', but that he will always emerge stronger and richer in experience from putting all his effort into a project, or in dealing with one of life's many challenges.
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4. Be honest in every relationship</h4>
Whether it's with a friend, a partner, or a co-worker, honesty is one quality I appreciate most in a human being. I hope my son realises the value of being true to himself and towards others. Life is automatically less complicated by being sincere in our interactions.
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5. Choose to be happy</h4>
Choose happiness over material things, I'd like to tell him. In an age where things can appear unrealistic on social media, I hope he follows his heart, and doesn't worry about what his life 'appears' like to others, and how many possessions he has. There are many more rewards in life than the materialistic ones.
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6. Be sensitive, but not foolish</h4>
Of course, I want him to be sensitive to others' feelings. But I wouldn't want him to discount his own. I hope no one takes advantage of his sincerity and kindness. I'd like for him to be trusting, but also keep his eyes open.<br />
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My son is only three, but nothing will stop me from thinking about the good human being I want him to grow up to be. I want him to know all these things, even when he's stopped hearing my voice.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7weKCtsgdj5b2jAdDoWf4tzAjv7k71ycNTf7bh-ehuBmdBMFxOwhln6kyoqFuJgfzCnMV_2xYU2QfXk2iP1IVDaxygkKrll6rQ73vyvRhMUrs0JYWD5NDNbNt_aKjleG3fihe2pAvJiQ/s1600/profile-sq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7weKCtsgdj5b2jAdDoWf4tzAjv7k71ycNTf7bh-ehuBmdBMFxOwhln6kyoqFuJgfzCnMV_2xYU2QfXk2iP1IVDaxygkKrll6rQ73vyvRhMUrs0JYWD5NDNbNt_aKjleG3fihe2pAvJiQ/s1600/profile-sq.jpg" /></a><i><b>Tarana Khan </b>is mom to a toddler, living an expat life. She loves writing and has done her stints as a copywriter, reporter and content editor, before embracing parenthood full time. She blogs at <b><a href="http://www.sandinmytoes.tk/" target="_blank">Sand In My Toes</a></b>, where you can drop by to read more of her parenting and other adventures! You can also catch up with her on <a href="http://twitter.com/sandinmytoesTK" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/sandinmytoesTK" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/sandinmytoesTK" target="_blank">Pinterest</a> or <a href="https://plus.google.com/SandinmytoesTk" target="_blank">Google+</a>.</i>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-51967693657424737412014-11-23T17:21:00.003+08:002014-11-24T10:12:19.138+08:00Ten, Going on Twenty <br />
I have a guest post up at the moment over on the blog of Dubai blogger Tarana Khan,<a href="http://sandinmytoes.tk/"></a> <a href="http://www.sandinmytoes.tk/2014/11/my-son-is-ten-going-on-twenty-guest-post.html">Sand in my Toes</a>, called <i>Ten, Going on Twenty. </i>It's all about my son and all the contrasts and contradictions in innocence and experience that characterise his current age.<br />
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I'd love it if you could pop over and have a read. You'll find it <a href="http://www.sandinmytoes.tk/2014/11/my-son-is-ten-going-on-twenty-guest-post.html">here.</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-66340934238373881382014-10-22T16:05:00.001+08:002014-10-27T08:50:41.642+08:00Rubbish Bin Art In the suburb where I grew up, there is a cul-de-sac where. if you go walking on a Friday morning, you will be treated to a free art exhibition.<br />
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As you can see from the photos below, the residents of this little road have jazzed up their rubbish bins. The first time I saw these works of art, I wondered if maybe an entrepreneurial teen had offered to decorate his neighbours' bins in exchange for a fee, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case as each of the bins are so different from each other and it's hard to imagine they were all done by the same person.<br />
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I then wondered if perhaps the residents had some sort of an arty party one day where they all got together to give their bins a lick of paint. The street does seem to be a bit of an artists' hideaway; several of the houses have studios on their properties and one even has an old railway carriage.<br />
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This seems to me the most likely explanation, but I suppose there is always the possibility that one Friday morning, one creative mind wheeled his spruced-up bin onto the curb and all the other residents had a case of artistic envy and quickly followed suit.<br />
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Whatever the circumstances, it's definitely a fun street to walk down on bin day ...<br />
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This last one would have to be my favourite ... just in case painting a bin is not creative enough, this household crocheted a 'bin cosy' for theirs! </div>
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<img alt="Mummy Mondays Linky" src="http://i1.wp.com/www.themultitaskingmummy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/TMM_MummyMondays-A.jpg?resize=150%2C150" /> <a href="http://onemotherhen.blogspot.com.au/" rel="nofollow"><img alt="one mother hen" src="http://i1259.photobucket.com/albums/ii550/alleychook/f3c63c72-0117-4650-9e01-24f69e97b22b_zps2f5fa88c.jpg" height="140" width="140" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">Which of the bins is your favourite?</span><br />
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<b>Have you ever painted a bin yourself?</b><br />
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<b>Have you ever crocheted something for an inanimate object? </b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-66784214156523281752014-10-14T10:59:00.004+08:002014-10-14T13:08:47.834+08:00100 Word Story - Reader's Digest Australia Competition <br />
I've wanted to take on the challenge of writing a one hundred word story for a few years now and recently, I saw in the Reader's Digest Australia magazine that their 100 Word Story Competition is on again. The prize for the overall winner is $1000 and since I have taken my car to the mechanic and my teeth to the dentist both in the same week, I decided that now is well and truly the time to enter. I had thought that the challenge was to write a story of 100 words or less, but it turns out that it must be exactly 100 words. After adding and taking away words half a dozen times, here's what I came up with: <br />
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<a class="iol_imc" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" idx="99" style="height: 285px; left: 465px; top: 94px; visibility: visible; width: 380px;"><img class="mainImage" src="http://animprobablelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/birthday_cake-candle-on-number_1.jpg" height="480" style="background-color: white; height: 285px; width: 380px;" width="640" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=cake+candle&qs=n&form=QBIRMH&pq=cake+candle&sc=8-5&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=21C739756CBF437B4A33A38B3CCB66E72AA33FE3&selectedIndex=99">source</a><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She sits in front of the cake, eyes gleaming, totally present in this moment.</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<em><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Her family gathers around her, smiling, taking photographs. They wouldn't have missed this party for anything.</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<em><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One of them lights the candle, another turns off the lights. Her gap-toothed smile broadens, she starts to drool. Someone leans across with a napkin and wipes her chin.</span></em><br />
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<em><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">She's can't express her gratitude with words, but they can see how much she's enjoying herself.</span></em><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<em><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They start to sing. It's time to blow out the candle. Just the one, to symbolise a century; one hundred would have been too many.</span></em> <br />
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<a href="http://essentiallyjess.com/1775-2/ibot"><img src="http://essentiallyjess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ibotbutton.png" /></a>
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The Reader's Digest 100 Word Story Competition is open until the 31st December 2014. You can enter your own story <a href="http://www.readersdigest.com.au/100-word-story?icm=slider&icn=100+Word+Story2014">here.</a> Hyphenated words count as one. Good luck!<br />
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<strong>Have you ever written a 100 word story or any other very, very short work of fiction?</strong> Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-26235138139095355262014-10-01T08:34:00.000+08:002014-10-03T06:49:28.662+08:00How to Get a Baby to Sleep - Wheelbarrow Style<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Last week, Annalisa and I were visiting her grandparents and were out playing in the garden. She walked over to the shed, where she knew the wheelbarrow is kept, pointed to the door and said "Brrrrm" (Brrrrm is her word for anything that has wheels). I'd given her a ride in it before and she must have remember how much fun it was. So I got out the wheelbarrow and gave her a ride around the garden. </div>
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But after only a couple of laps of the house, she started to get sleepy ...</div>
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And then a minute or so later, I looked down and saw this ...<br />
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This was the girl who has taken an HOUR to get to sleep in her cot the previous afternoon!<br />
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So we took a bit of a <i>tour de jardin</i> in the spring sunshine. I couldn't believe how peacefully she slept in there.<br />
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Eventually, I stopped wheeling her round and left her to finish her nap by the lavender.</div>
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<b>Have you accidentally discovered any other weird and wonderful ways to get a baby to sleep?</b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-88548274230148850712014-09-29T14:03:00.001+08:002014-10-03T06:47:47.306+08:00Easy Raw Chocolate Recipe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I must confess I have a new love in my life. And no, it's not a member of the opposite sex. Heavens no. It's raw chocolate.</div>
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I discovered an absolutely delectable brand of raw chocolate in the supermarket a few months ago and it has been an obsession ever since. I do have some competition for my new love though - my rascal of an eighteen-month-year-old, who adores the stuff just as much, if not more, than I do.<br />
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The ingredients in the chocolate are all natural so our obsession isn't a problem as far as our health is concerned, but I have been starting to think that perhaps it is becoming a bit of a problem as far as our finances are concerned. At $2.59 per small bar, this choccy isn't cheap. I worked out that if we had just one little bar a day (not that we do. We do have days off, but we also have days when I eat four or five in a row so that evens things out), that would end up costing $945.35 over a year.<br />
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So I decided I had better learn how to make it myself.<br />
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After studying the ingredients on the back of the packet, looking up various recipes online and doing a bit of tweaking and experimenting, I've come up with an easy peasy recipe for raw chocolate balls:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Ingredients</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">
1 cup of dates, chopped</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1 cup of nuts, crushed (I used 1/2 cup of almonds and 1/2 a cup of cashews. You could also use pecans, walnuts or macadamias or a combination of whichever nuts take your fancy).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1/4 cup of coconut oil</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1/2 cup cocoa powder</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1/2 teaspoon cardamon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1/4 teaspoon cinnamon</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">1 teaspoon vanilla</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Method </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">
1. Chop dates, place in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Set aside to soak for one hour</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Place nuts in a sandwich bag or plastic bag and bash with rolling pin until crushed. You can also use a mortar and pestle for this if you have one. But I recommend the sandwich bag and the rolling pin because the bashing process is enormously fun. In fact, I'd go as far as to say it's actually therapeutic. Perhaps I should bash nuts more often.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3. Once dates have soaked for an hour, strain, making sure to catch excess water in a bowl</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4. Place dates, nuts, spices, coconut oil and cocoa in a bowl and mix all ingredients together</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">5. If more moisture is required, add some of the remaining date water until desirable consistency is achieved (this is a sticky mixture though so you may not need any at all)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">6. Line a tray with baking paper. Place rounded teaspoons of mixture onto paper</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">7. Place in refrigerator. Leave to refrigerate for at least an hour </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">8. Sit back and indulge</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.bakeplaysmile.com/" title="Bake Play Smile"><img alt="Bake Play Smile" src="http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m138/lucy65/FFF_FBLogo_nobg_zps04352d62.jpg" height="200" style="border: none;" width="198" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Do you like raw chocolate?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Do you have any other tried and tested recipes for it?</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Have you bashed anything lately with a rolling pin? </b></span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-91769996549231649242014-09-29T13:29:00.001+08:002017-11-11T15:59:35.274+08:00A Cautionary Tale About Pyjamas and the School Run<div style="background-color: white; font-weight: normal; line-height: 42.5999984741211px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px;">
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A Cautionary Tale About Pyjamas & The School Run</h3>
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I have often wondered if all mothers of school-aged children were asked to do an anonymous survey about whether they had ever dropped their child off at school in their pyjamas (assuming, of course, that they didn't have to get out of the car) what resulting percentage of secret pyjama wearers there would be.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I must confess that I am guilty, not just of a once-off or a now-and-then offence, but of being a serial pyjama school run mum. And while I'm being honest, I might as well confess that I'm sometimes still in my PJs when I go to pick my son up from school in the afternoon too.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Well today's post is a little cautionary tale about why one should actually dress oneself in a socially acceptable manner before leaving the house ...</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">As we leave the house in the mornings, my nine-year-old son and I have developed a bit of a routine: I grab the house keys, the car keys and the baby and go out the back door. As I do so, I stick the house key into the lock, leaving the door open. While I am putting the baby in her carseat and warming up the engine, Ben follows me out of the house, turns the key in the lock, gives me the keys and runs next door to get Han, the little girl who lives there, who we take to school. This usually works quite well because I can threatened Ben, who is the slowest breakfast eater in the history of the world, that if he doesn't hurry up I will drive Han to school and leave him at home. Fortunately for me, he likes school and this always speeds him up. He also doesn't want to miss out on seeing Han.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Last Friday, however, our little routine did not go altogether smoothly. Neither Ben nor I are morning people and we were running even later than we usually do. The morning fog had also not yet lifted from our brains and, although we didn't realise it at the time, we were both operating in a state of muddle-headedness.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I drove the kids to school in the usual way, decked out in pyjamas with a hoodie over the top. The little girl next door is used to seeing me dressed like this now. She either thinks it's completely normal or else she thinks I'm officially insane and is just too polite to tell me, because she's never mentioned it.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">After dropping them off, I drove home, parked the car, got the baby out of her carseat and patted my left pocket where I always put the housekeys. A feeling of dread washed over me. The pocket was empty.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I checked the right pocket. I checked all through the car. I checked to see if they were still in the door. But alas, the door was locked and the keys were nowhere to be found. There was only one place they could be: in Ben's pocket.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Now if I had been clad in socially acceptable attire, this would not have been much a problem. I would simply have driven up to Ben's school, knocked on the door of his classroom, explained the situation, got the keys, end of story. But this was not the case. Now don't get me wrong, I'm really not too concerned if people like the way I dress or not, but I had my son to think of here as well. It is doubtful if he would ever truly be able to forgive his mother for turning up to his school, where he is still very much the new kid on the block, in her flanellette pyjamas. Added to that, I was braless, make-upless and wearing a pair of big fluffy slippers (not that turning up to your kid's classroom in pyjamas is okay as long as you're wearing make-up, a bra and nice shoes, but I'm just trying to draw a picture of my physical state).</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">I looked a little something like this, only hundreds and thousands of times worse, because this is my 4 pm face (I got Ben to snap a re-enactment shot when he came home from school) and at the time I had my 8:30am </span><i style="line-height: 19.8799991607666px;">I-don't-do-mornings</i><span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;"> face on and believe me, you should be grateful that you're not looking at a photo of that.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">At this point a number of things went through my mind. Should I call the school and ask the secretary to ask Ben to meet me in the carpark? That might have worked, but my phone was inside the house. Should I drive to my sister's or my best friend's house, ask them to come back with me in the car and get them to knock on the door of Ben's classroom? That seemed like a plausible solution so I got back in the car and headed off and then realised that I had no petrol. Both of them live twenty minutes away and I would have been lucky if the car could have got half that distance. Even if I swallowed my pride and ventured into the petrol station in my nocturnal apparel, there was the small problem of money; my purse was locked inside the house too.</span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 22.3999996185303px;">Perhaps I was just going to have to risk it. I'd just get in there, get it done and get out as quickly as possible. If I put on my sunnies and just popped my head round the corner of the classroom door, keeping my body concealed, then surely there was a chance I might get away with it. I put my hand to the top of my head to reach for my sunglasses (which I never go driving without, even if it's overcast), but all I could feel was the top of my head. Of all days, of course this day would have to be the one where I forgot my sunglasses. I hunted round frantically in the car for my old ones which I knew had been floating around there recently, but all I found in the way of eyewear was a pair of 3D glasses. That's really all I needed to top off my outfit and give me a lifetime reputation as a flat out freak.</span><br />
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At that point I also remembered that, being Friday morning, the whole school would also be having assembly. Parents are always invited to this of course, but this was far from a comforting thought. So besides gate-crashing the assembly and scarring my son for life, the only other alternative I could think of was waiting outside the house until school finished six and a half hours later. It was chilly, I had no clean nappies for the baby and the only thing to eat would have been the nasturtiums in the front garden.<br />
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So desperate times led to desperate measures. The only thing left to do was to ask Han's mum, Thuy, for help. Thuy and I have met and greeted each other several times since we moved to the area a couple of months ago and she was very happy when I offered to drive her daughter to school, but up until that point, we had never been inside each other's homes and she had definitely never seen me so casually dressed.<br />
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I knocked on the door and when she opened it, I blurted out "I need your help". I didn't even need to explain the whole story. As soon as I said "Ben's got my keys in his pocket", she nodded her head, got her coat and came outside. An amused little smile spread across her face. She doesn't have a car, so we both drove up to the school in mine. She got out and braved the crowds at the assemble to find Ben and bring the keys back to me where I was lying low in the car.<br />
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When we got back to our houses, she invited me in for a coffee. I hung out in her loungeroom, without even bothering to go home and get changed, for another two hours. That little smile didn't leave her lips the entire time.I think we're going to become good friends.<br />
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That afternoon when I asked Ben to take a photo of me for my blog (because, let's face it, I really have no life and don't have anything else to blog about), instead of apologising for pocketing my keys and allowing me to endure such emotional exhaustion, he said very matter-of-factly: "It's lucky you didn't come up to assembly this morning in your PJs, mum; your pyjama top doesn't even match the bottoms!"<br />
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So in future I shall be far more careful. In future I shall ensure that I always go to bed in matching pyjama top and bottoms so the next time I get locked out of my house, at least I will look fashionably co-ordinated when my neighbour opens the door to me. </div>
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<b>So tell me the truth ... do you do the school run in your PJs?</b></div>
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<b>Have you ever been caught out?</b></div>
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<b>Could you trust your neighbours to save you from public pyjama shame?</b></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-23369905844459323432014-09-20T21:58:00.001+08:002015-01-16T18:12:05.644+08:00Ten Things I Love about HereI've had this post growing in my head for more than five months now.<br />
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It took root while I was thinking one day back in April about all the things Ben and I left behind when we left the home we used to share with my daughter's father. My losses were great, but my son's were greater because he had no control over the decision to move away from his school and his friends and a limited understanding of why it was necessary to move so far away.<br />
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At around the same time that I was having these thoughts, a number of things started to go wrong in our little cottage: the roof sprung a large leak, we were visited by several rodent guests, the oven decided it would stop working whenever it was raining, the washing machine decided it would only work when it felt like it, and half the light bulbs in the house stopped working all at once. Some of these problems were reasonably easy to fix. Others have been ongoing challenges.<br />
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So Ben and I came up with a little motto to help us put things into perspective and appreciate our house more during those times when we get fed up and want to rant about our house being too small or too leaky or that it stinks of dead rat-in-the-ceiling, That motto is: "it's better than camping" and it makes us remember all the things we <i>have, </i>like beds and hot showers and a computer and a power point to charge my phone.<br />
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And so, on that day back in April, I thought to myself, <i>actually there's a lot to be thankful for around here. </i>I started to make a list in my head and every so often, as the weeks went by, I'd add something to that list in my head. I'd go back to that list whenever I felt my thoughts returning to the things I had lost and left behind to remind myself of the beauty and fortune in our lives.<br />
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Tonight, I thought I'd finally get that list out of my head and onto this space. So here it is,<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b><u>Ten Things I love about Here</u></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>1</b>. <b>There are three parks in walking distance from us</b></span><br />
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We visit them often when the weather is fine. Sometimes, we even go on a park 'crawl' and go to all three in one day. And it's as good for me as it is for the kids - it's a pretty good work-out chasing a toddler around a park! It's really quite embarrassing how quickly I work up a sweat and start panting.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>2.</b> <b>We have the best of both worlds</b></span><br />
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We live in quite an unusual suburb of Western Australia in that our house seems to straddle two parallel worlds. On one side of the river near to us is the hub of urban life, but on the other lies a laid back of cul-de-sacs and cottages, some of which are among the oldest buildings in the state.<br />
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If we walk out of our driveway and turn left and walk for five minutes, we come to a mini suburban metropolis where we can find top-quality coffee, a library, three major supermarkets, a video store, a post office and a take-away pizza chain. Oh, and <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/bloody-mary-pasta.html">the liquor store I told you about in this post.</a><b>. </b><br />
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But if we walk out of our driveway and turn right and head for five minutes in that direction, we go past properties that are semi-rural, some with geese and chickens, some with horses and one with alpacas. Yes, that's right, alpacas. I was walking along one morning with my top-quality take-away coffee in my hand and all of a sudden, I looked up and there was an alpaca. I had to do a bit of eye rubbing.<br />
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This is where I planned on inserting a photo of an alpaca or a horse. I went walking this morning to snap one, but the blighters were all hiding from me.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>3.</b> <b>We live in walking distance from a train station</b></span><br />
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I know that might not sound particularly riveting to some of you, but Ben loves train travel and after living so far away from any trains for such a long time, it's all seems rather exciting for us. We've taken a few trips into the city of Perth and also to <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2014/03/the-alphabet-weekends-f.html">Fremantle</a><b>.</b><br />
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Ice-cream time in the city with my lovelies last weekend.<br />
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I don't notice the toots of the trains anymore as they come and go from the station. When we first moved in, I noticed them all the time. But it was strangely comforting because it reminded me that I wasn't completely cut off from the world the way I had been before.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">4. This little corner of the globe is quirky</span> </b>(and we do like a good dose of quirk now and then)<br />
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This means our family walks are rarely dull. I'm not just talking about the people we meet either. We have a route that we follow when we're going for a walk just for some exercise and fresh air and along the way, in among the houses of the back streets suburbia, we pass a graveyard (which Ben always wants to enter), a caravan park, an antique shop and a veterinary clinic which doesn't look like a veterinary clinic at all because its premises is a rather rundown suburban house. We often hear a cacophony of assorted barks, squawks and brays coming from inside when we walk by.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>5. We have corner shops - TWO of them - </b>spoilt for choice</span><br />
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I was delighted and surprised to discover that there are two surviving corner shops close to us, when all over the country, these iconic institutions seem to be dropping like flies. It's even more surprising when you consider just how close they are to some of the major supermarket chains. But how could a supermarket ever hold the same intimacy as a corner shop? Actually, if I'm buying more than one item, the man who owns the one I go to most often usually tries to rip me off by ten or twenty cents each time. He looks over whatever I've put on the counter then just tells me a price. Maybe he's just really bad at maths, but I tend to think he's a very cunning business man taking advantage of the fact that he doesn't have to scan items or give receipts. If he managed to get an extra ten cents out of every second customer every day, that would really add up over a year. But I'm onto him. And I still love corner shops.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">6. All is going well at Ben's school</span></b><br />
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He has really hit the ground running at his new school. He came in at week eight of first term and had been invited to two different boys' homes for a play before the end of the week. He's made friends with both boys and girls of different ages and backgrounds and never wants to miss a day of school. I try to remind him often that I'm so proud of how good he is at making friends.<br />
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The only real thing that's not going so well is his inability to stop talking in class. I think I will have to nominate his teacher for earthly beatification.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">7. We have orchards, vineyards and rolling hills practically on our doorstep</span></b><br />
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There are two ways that we can drive to my parent's place from our house. The first way involves two highways and several sets of traffic lights and for a while I thought that was the only way. Then one day, we were out driving about and exploring and we realised that there is a back way to their house through the Perth hills. This way takes about ten minutes longer, but has winding roads through the bush instead of highways and beautiful scenery instead of traffic lights. I take the back way whenever I can (except at night because there's no street lights on those windy roads).<br />
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In some places, the scenery on this route reminds me of the landscape around parts of the south west of Western Australia, where we lived for two years before moving here. Driving through these roads, with their apple trees and grapevines, helps to ease the longing in my heart for the place we had to leave.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">8. Our garden is full of endless surprises</span></b><br />
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When we first moved in , I had no idea that there were so many natural beauties in our garden. I was allowed fifteen minutes to inspect the house during the home opening before making an application for it, so there wasn't enough time to explore the garden in detail. Since then, we've discovered an olive tree, a locut tree, a jade plant (which is also known as a money tree apparently, so hopefully it will bring me good fortune) and as the seasons have changed, roses, lavender, hawthorn, black-eyed susans, nasturtiums and poinsettia have all sprung up and made our garden alive with colour and flooded with fragrance.<br />
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There's also this beauty whose name I can't remember. I think it starts with D. If anyone knows, please tell me!<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">9. I have neighbours who bring me food</span></b><br />
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This point will have a entire blog post complied in its honour one day I'm sure. On one side of us lives Fadima from Singapore, who brings us exotic spicy delicacies whose names I can't pronounce and on the other side lives Thuy from Vietnam, who brings us coconut curry and noodles and desserts made with banana and tapioca. I make them biscuits. They always tell me they were delicious, but never know for sure if they eat them or not :)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">10. Happy people</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>Since moving to this area, I have been surprised and touched by how friendly so many of the people are around here. One thing I noted straight away was how genuinely happy the people who work in the supermarkets are. They seem to take a pride in their job en masse that I haven't observed in any other place I've lived in before. On two separate occasions, when I've asked ladies in Coles to help me find a particular item, they've ended up sharing their own recipes with me too.<br />
<br />
I'll be honest and tell you that before moving here I had a preconceived notion that this was not a particularly 'nice' area and that the people here would all be rough at best and maybe even dangerous. Well some of them are, but most of them are anything but. They might not be 'refined', but at least they're not pretending to be anything they're not.<br />
<br />
Recently, I was telling a friend of mine how amazed I was by how open and friendly the people are around this area. The place I lived in before had a reputation for laid-back locals and a welcoming attitude and yet, I found it was much more the case in this new place. And she said to me: "Maybe it's you that's different. Maybe because now you are free to be yourself and you don't have to worry about who you talk to anymore or what you say and you're not so full of anxiety, maybe that draws people to you".<br />
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I've been thinking a lot about what she said, and I think she might be onto something :)<br />
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Linking up this weekend with <a href="http://summat2thinkon.wordpress.com/">Lizzi</a> for <a href="http://summat2thinkon.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/ten-things-of-thankful-66/">her Ten Things of Thankful link-up.</a><br />
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<b>What are you thankful for in the area where you live? </b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-3636945984722580512014-08-26T02:02:00.000+08:002014-09-08T21:45:05.569+08:00The Secret Life of the Number Nine <span style="color: blue;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: blue;">I originally intended this to be a quick little post about some cool maths patterns and some fun facts about the number nine, but as I started to read more and more about this number, the post sort of took on a life of its own and, like John Lennon (I'll get to him later), I got a little bit obsessed with this number. You might be too in a few minutes ... enjoy!</span><br />
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<br />
"Do you have a favourite number?" I'd often ask the kids who came in for maths support at the tutoring centre where I worked last year.<br />
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The answer was often a shrug of the shoulders, a blank look or a look that said <i>Are you insane? Aren't all numbers diabolical?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Usually, these kids struggled significantly in grasping the maths concepts they were being taught at school and as a result of having fallen behind their peers, were often disengaged in anything related to numeracy.<br />
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We often started the sessions off with work on their times tables because it's so difficult to progress in maths without a sound knowledge of them. My challenge was therefore to marry the times tables with something fun to achieve engagement. So after I'd asked them their favourite number, I'd tell them mine.<br />
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"Mine's nine', I say, "Do you want to know why?"<br />
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Luckily, no-one ever said no.<br />
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"Because nine is a magic number", I'd tell them. "You can find out the answers to your nine times table just by using your fingers. Lend me your hands for a moment and I'll show you".<br />
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For the purpose of this post, I borrowed my son's little hands to demonstrate.<br />
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Following this pattern, you can work out your nine times table all the way up to 10 x 9 , which looks like this:<br />
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But the magic of nine doesn't stop there. The number nine forms some fascinating patterns which I'd sometimes share with the kids too. Here are my six favourites ...<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>1. </b><b>The inverse times table</b>. Another cool thing about the nine times table is that whenever you multiply a number by nine, you can reverse the digits in the answer and every single time you will get another multiple of nine.<br />
<br />
Let's put that to the test:<br />
<br />
<b>3 x 9 = 27 27 inversed = 72 72 = 9 x 8</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7 x 9 = 63 63 inversed = 36 36 = 9 x 4</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><br /></b><b>10 x 9 = 90 90 inversed is 09 09 = 9 x 1</b><br />
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<br />
<b>2. Multiply any number by 9 and the sum of the digits in the answer will always equal nine.</b><br />
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For example:<br />
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<b>2 x 9 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6 x 9 = 54 (5 + 4 = 9)</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>12 x 9 = 108 (1 + 0 + 8 = 9)</b><br />
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<b>3</b>. And just when you thought the nine times table couldn't get any cooler, check this out:<br />
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<br />
<b>123456789 x 9 = 1111111101</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">123456789 x 18 = 2222222202</span></b><br />
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<b>123456789 x 27 = 3333333303</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">123456789 x 36 = 4444444404</span></b><br />
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<b>123456789 x 45 = 5555555505</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">123456789 x 54 = 6666666606</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>123456789 x 63 = 7777777707</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">123456789 x 72 = 8888888808</span></b><br />
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<b>123456789 x 81 = 9999999909</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">123456789 x 90 = 11111111010</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<b>4. </b>There's an intriguing pattern involving the number nine in a subtraction exercise too:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;">Think of any number with two or more digits. Write it down.</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">Now write down the inverse of this number.</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">Subtract whichever number of the two is lower from the other.</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">The digits of the answer will always add up to a multiple of nine.</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<br />
For example:<br />
<br />
<b>64 - 46 = 18 (1 + 8 = 9)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">72 - 27 = 45 (4 + 5 = 9)</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>896 - 698 = 198 (1 + 9 + 8 = 18)</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">998877 - 778899 = 219978 (2 +1 + 9 + 9 + 7 + 8 = 36)</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<b>5.</b> Here's another amazing pattern that occurs when adding with the number nine:<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #351c75;">Think of any number containing two or more digits</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">Add nine to this number</span><br />
<span style="color: #351c75;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #351c75;">The sum of the digits in the answer will always be equal to the sum of the digits in your original number</span><br />
<br />
For example:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>33 + 9 = 42 (3 + 3 = 6 and 4 + 2 also = 6)</b><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">111 + 9 = 120 (1 + 1 + 1 = 3 and 1 + 2 + 0 also = 3)</span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>6982 + 9 = 6991 (6 + 9 + 8 + 2 = 25 and 6 + 9 + 9 + 1 also = 25)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<b>6. </b>I saved my very favourite one for last. This one's a <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: inherit;">magic maths trick</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i> </i></span></span>you can do to wow your kids or to just show off in general and make people think you have extrasensory perception :)<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>You will need:</b><br />
<br />
1. A pen and paper<br />
<br />
2. A person to trick<br />
<br />
<b>Steps:</b><br />
<br />
1. Give the person you are going to trick the paper and pen and ask them to write down a number that is <b>at least four digits long</b>. They should keep this number a secret from you.<br />
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2. Now tell them to <b>add the digits of that number together</b>. For example, if the number they chose was <b>4903</b>, the sum of the digits would be <b>16</b>.<br />
<br />
3. Now ask them to <b>subtract the sum of those digits from their original number</b>.<br />
<br />
<b> 4903 - 16 = 4887</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
4<b>. </b>Next, ask them to <b>cross out any number of their choice (except for a zero)</b> from the answer they have just arrived at.<br />
<br />
5. Finally, ask them to tell you what the number in front of them is now that they have removed one number.<br />
<br />
For example, if they crossed out the seven, the number would be <b>488</b>.<br />
<br />
6. In your head, <b>add together the digits of the number they have just told you</b>.<br />
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(4 + 8 + 8 = <b>20</b>)<br />
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7. <b>Calculate how many numbers there are between the number you have just arrived at and the next multiple of nine</b>.<br />
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In this case, the next multiple of nine is 27. 27 - 20 = <b>7</b>.<br />
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<b>8.</b><span style="color: #cc0000;"> Wow the pants off the other person by telling them the number they crossed out was seven.</span><br />
<span style="color: #cc0000;"><br /></span>
<br />
To test this trick out a little further, imagine that the number they chose to cross out was 4.<br />
<br />
They would therefore tell you that the final number in front of them is 887.<br />
<br />
Adding those digits together brings you to 23.<br />
<br />
The next multiple of nine you come to starting at 23 is 27.<br />
<br />
The difference between 23 and 27 is four (the number they crossed out)<br />
<br />
This works for any combination of numbers as long at their original number has at least four digits and the number they chose out is not a zero.<br />
<br />
How cool is that? Who could not be ĂĽber in love with the number nine now?<br />
<br />
But the mysteries surrounding this number are not just limited to the realms of mathematics; they permeate subjects such as religion, astrology, astronomy, the natural rhythms of life and the vernacular of our English language.<br />
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You would have heard, of course, that cats have nine lives and that a stitch in time saves nine. A human pregnancy lasts nine months and prior to Pluto being officially demoted to the status of dwarf planet, there were nine planets in our solar system. Astrologers still work with all nine original planets, however.<br />
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<b>Nine is also significant in all five of the major world religions:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>For <b>Muslims</b>, Ramadan occurs during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<ul>
<li>In <b>Hinduism</b>, the number nine is featured in many of the concepts and practices of that faith. I am not familiar with the full extent of these, but have read that Hindus observe nine different forms of devotion and that the goddess Durga is worshipped each year for a total of nine days and nine nights. Hindus also consider the human body to be a city with nine gates which correspond with the nine points of entry/exit into the body (two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, the mouth, the anus and the urethra). I'm not quite sure why the vagina is not counted in this tally, but if you happen to know, please enlighten me!</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Worship of the Sri Chakra (or Sri Yantra) is also central to the Hindu faith. The chakra consists of a total of nine intertwining triangles (five pointing downwards to represent the feminine and four pointing upwards to represent the masculine). Together they symbolise the union between masculinity and femininity and the communion of the cosmos.<br />
<img alt="Sri Yantra" src="http://www.ancient-symbols.com/images/sri_yantra.jpg" /><br />
<a href="http://www.ancient-symbols.com/symbols-directory/sri-yantra.html">source</a> <br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>In <b>Judaism</b>, a period known as <i>The Nine Days</i> is observed every year during the first nine days of the Jewish month of <b>Av </b>(July/August). This time is set aside for communal and personal mourning for the tragedies that have inflicted the Jewish people throughout the ages.</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Fascinatingly and disturbingly coincidental, the ninth day of the month of Av was the date of the destruction of both the first and second Holy Jewish Temples (656 years apart), the date when the Jews were expelled from England in 1290, the date Germany entered the war in 1914 and the day on which the implementation of The Final Solution was approved by the Nazi Party, in 1942.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>In <b>Christianity</b>, the Bible refers to the nine fruits and to the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit. The number nine also features in the Book of Acts, where praying at the "ninth hour" is referred to on two separate occassions.</li>
</ul>
<br />
The association of prayer and the number nine found in the bible led Roman Catholics to adopt the practice of observing nine day prayer rituals known as <i>novenas </i>(<i>novem </i>being Latin for 'nine').<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Buddhists </b>believe that there are nine levels of consciousness and nine separate spiritual planes of existence that one must pass through prior to enlightenment.</li>
</ul>
<br />
In Buddhism, the number <b>108 </b>(12 x 9) also features prominently: Buddhist temples contain 108 steps, they believe that there are 108 paths to reach Nirvana and it is said that if a person is calm enough to breathe just 108 times a day, that they will reach enlightenment.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Both Buddhist and Hindu <b>malas </b>(prayer rosaries) consist of 108 beads. Mantras are recited 108 times on these malas as this number is said to be sacred and to be in rhythm with time and space.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In other religions and cultures, 108 is also significant: in <b>Islam</b>, this number is used to refer to God. In <b>Japan</b>, the New Year is welcomed in with the beating of a gong 108 times in all the main temples. Traditional <b>Indian </b>dance comprises of 108 poses. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b>Astronomers </b>have discovered that the diameter of the sun is 108 times the diameter of the earth. They have also calculated that the distance between the earth and the sun is equal to 108 times the sun's diameter and that the distance between the earth and the moon is equal to 108 times the moon's diamater.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>In the study of <b>astrology</b>, nine planets move through twelve houses, creating 108 possible combinations in total, which are collectively considered to represent the whole of existence.</li>
</ul>
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The symbolism and significance of the number nine and its multiples have been a source of fascination to many throughout history, but possibly its most famous devotee of the modern era was <b>John Lennon</b>, who is quoted to have said that it was a number that "followed [him] around" his whole life.<br />
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Lennon was born on the ninth day of the month. His street number of his first home was nine and the names of the street, suburb and city in the address of that house all contained nine letters each.<br />
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He was the lead singer of the Beatles for nine years. During his time with the band and later as a solo artist, he released a total of three songs containing the number nine in the title: <i>One After 909</i>, <i>Revolution 9 </i>(which appeared on the Beatles 9th UK album) and <i>#9 Dream</i> (which peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100).<br />
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The incidences in which the number nine surfaced in Lennon's life are too numerous to list here, but can be found over at <a href="http://www.beatlesbible.com/features/john-lennon-number-nine/">The Beatles Bible</a>.<br />
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When he was shot, Lennon was taken to Roosevelt Hospital on 9th Avenue, Manhattan. 'Roosevelt' and 'Manhattan' both contain nine letters respectively. He passed away in the USA on the 8th December 1980, but the date in the UK at his time of death was already the 9th December.<br />
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He died at the age of 40, not even making it into middle age and yet significantly older than many other musicians who, as we know, have a tendency for living short lives. Much of this can be put down to drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and reckless living, but the fact remains that there an uncanny number of world famous musicians have lost their lives, via a variety of causes, at the age of 27.<br />
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These coincidences became so prolific that the group has been dubbed "The 27 Club". Its members include over 40 celebrated musicians including <b>Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jacob Miller, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain </b>and <b>Amy Winehouse.</b><br />
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And so it begs the question: why 27?<br />
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According to Astrologers, this phenomenon is due to what is known as the <b>Saturn Cycle</b>. Apparently, Saturn returns to the position it was in at the time of our birth once approximately every 29 and a half years, but those changes begin to be felt when we reach 27 years of age and can remain into our early thirties. Saturn's return brings with it a sense of sobriety and an awakening to our own mortality. For some, Saturn's return is a positive time of re-focusing or finding new direction, but for others, it is a painfully intense period marked by the pressure of time creeping up on us and the realisation of the end of our youth. Whether positive or negative, it is a time of decision making and reality checks which can either lead to exciting new beginnings for some or, for others, a sense of feeling completely overwhelmed and ill-equipped to handle what lies ahead in the future.<br />
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In the study of numerology, the age of 27 is a highly-charged period of our lives because it is a multiple of nine and numerologists believe that this number signifies the end of one cycle of our lives and the beginning of the next. These nine-yearly cross-over periods are times of adjustment, of personal reflection and of letting go. The tragic death of <b>Robin Williams</b> occurred just three weeks after his sixty-third birthday, which saw the completion of his seventh nine-year cycle.<br />
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Can you see how the cycle of nine has played out in your own life?<br />
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For me, nine was definitely an age of change. It was the year my dad told me Father Christmas wasn't real and I cried inconsolably not just for the loss of the magic of Christmas, but for the realisation that everything that I had thought was magical was just make believe. It was also the year that I accepted that I was never going to be an Olympic gymnast like I had dreamed of becoming because if I were, I would already have been a lot more talented than I was. And it was during that year, around the time of the Barcelona Olympics, that my teacher gave us a piece of homework where we had to watch something to do with the Olympics on TV and write about it. I approached her desk and told her that I wouldn't be able to do the homework because we didn't have a TV at home. She looked at me as if I had just told her we didn't have a roof on our house. So I guess that was also the time when I started to realise that, in subtle ways, I was a little bit different from the other kids. There was a certain loneliness in that realisation. At nine, it's hard to appreciate your uniqueness. And although I have never really reflected on it until now, nine was also the age when I started to believe that I wasn't quite <i>enough</i>.<br />
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Eighteen was a time of firsts. Of rites of passage into adulthood. Of sometimes taking great leaps into that territory known as maturity and independence and other times wanting to hold back and cling to an ever-fading adolescence. I spent the year I turned 18 living in Sweden as an exchange student. I loved that my school life in Australia was finally over and I could now live abroad like I'd dreamed of for so long, but I hated having to live by the rules of Rotary International, the organisation I was signed up to. I often felt like an adult forced to live as a child. The organisation had four main rules which they called <i>The Four Ds.</i> They were: no <b>d</b>rinking, no <b>d</b>riving, no <b>d</b>ating, no <b>d</b>rugs. Of course I can see now the necessity of these rules, but what 18 year old living half the world away from home would actually get excited about them? There was, however, a fifth, unwritten, 'D', passed on in whispers from exchange student to exchange student throughout the years: <i><b>D</b>o it all but don't get caught</i>.<br />
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Twenty-seven was an enormously pivotal year for me in terms of setting in motion a series of events which led to permanent change. A month before my twenty-seventh birthday, I moved to Sicily with my little boy, who was five years old at the time. I read in a guide book on the plane trip there that the population of Sicily was 5 million. We didn't know a single one of them. Twenty-seven was an age where I felt that if I didn't follow my dreams right then and there then I would miss the opportunity and never would. I still felt, at 27, that I could go anywhere I wanted and be anything I wanted to be (except a gymnast of course). I think I lost that feeling around the age of 29. Maybe that had something to do with good old Saturn.<br />
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My little boy is nine at the moment. He's always loved numbers; he uses them to help him understand the world around him. Nine has been an age of transition for him too. A time of breaking away and holding back. Of rebelling and resisting. Sometimes he gives me a little, then he takes it away. He knows that Father Christmas doesn't exist, he knows that nothing lasts forever, he knows what it feels like to never have the chance to say goodbye. He makes friends easily and he has lots of them, but he's learnt too, along the way, what it's like to dwell on the fringes. He's lost so much of his innocence and purity. His repertoire of profanities is more extensive than mine and he knows about things I'm sure I hadn't even heard of until I was at least 12 and yet, he's still afraid of the dark, still takes his teddy to bed, still tells me I'm the best mummy in the world when he's in a good mood, still wants a mummy cuddle when he hurts himself.<br />
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He still dreams of running at the Olympics one day too. In 2012, when he was seven, breathing down the neck of eight, that dream was so lucid, he talked of nothing else. He'd draw pictures of himself crossing the finish line in first place. He'd run up and down the backyard and beg me to time him to see if he'd improved his time from the day before. He'd fall asleep with a book on the Olympics he'd borrowed from the school library open on his lap.<br />
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That dream is still there, but it's fading. It's almost like, at nine years old, he's convinced himself already that even though he's good at athletics, he'll never be quite good enough.<br />
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He's breathing down the neck of ten now. My baby's going to be double-digits soon. I still haven't decided what I'm going to give him as a present, but I do know the two things I want to give him most of all.<br />
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I desperately want to be able to help him hold onto his dreams and never lose faith in himself. But there's something I want to give him even more than that: I want him to know that it doesn't matter how many medals and trophies he wins. It doesn't matter if he makes it to the Olympics or falls over at the athletics carnival at school this week.<br />
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I want him to know that it doesn't matter what he does or doesn't achieve in his life, because, no matter what, he'll always be enough for me.<br />
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<b>Do you have a favourite number?</b><br />
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<b>Do you remember anything significant about being 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54,63, 72, 81, 90 or 99? </b><br />
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<b>Do you know any other fascinating facts about the number 9 or 108? </b><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-7989691071178838122014-08-08T06:48:00.002+08:002014-09-02T14:46:45.883+08:00Bloody Mary PastaOne of my favourite pastas to make this Winter has been Bloody Mary Pasta and yes, as you may have guessed by the name, it's pasta with tomato and <b>vodka </b>(minus the other ingredients that go into the cocktail version).<br />
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Now as far as I see it, the only down side of being in love with this dish is having to make frequent visits to the liquor store to stock up on vodka (I get approximately three meals out of one bottle). Being a solo parent, that means having at least one child with me each time I go which, I venture to say, is <i>not a good look</i> when making recurrent beelines for the vodka aisle! Sometimes, as I'm waiting in line to pay, I do feel the urge to shout out "It's for cooking, not drinking!" but I'm doubtful anyone would actually believe me.<br />
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On one of our recent family excursions to the grog shop, I gave my nine-year-old a little educational tour around the aisles, so he could see which parts of Australia and the world that wine is made in and other very important information they're not allowed to teach in schools. Our conversation turned to how expensive alcohol can be. He was gobsmacked at how pricey one single bottle of wine can cost. Then I showed him how expensive the spirits were. His eye suddenly caught on a bottle of 35-year-old Scotch Whisky and in amazement he shouted out "Mum! This one costs more money than you've got in the bank!" I'm not sure how he knows how much money I have in the bank but unfortunately he was right (and a rather large number of people in our neighbourhood know now too!)<br />
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But back to the vodka and the pasta. It's super easy to make and if you serve it for dinner guests you can have fun trying to make them guess the secret ingredient :)<br />
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<b>Ingredients</b>:<br />
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2 tablespoons of butter<br />
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1 onion, chopped<br />
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4 cloves of garlic, crushed<br />
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2 cups of crushed tomatoes<br />
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1 cup of vodka<br />
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1 cup of chicken stock<br />
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1/2 cup of cream<br />
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salt & pepper<br />
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500g of pasta of your choice (I used spaghetti in the photo above, but fettuccine and tagliatelle work better because this is a thick sauce. My kids' favourite is penne though because they can stick their forks easily through the hole in the centre :)<br />
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3/4 cup parmesan cheese, finely grated<br />
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2 tablespoons parley, chopped<br />
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<b>Method</b>:<br />
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1. Melt the butter in a medium-sized pot<br />
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2. Cook onion over low heat until tender<br />
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3. Add garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes more<br />
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4. Add the tomatoes, vodka and stock<br />
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5. Simmer until it becomes thick<br />
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6. Add the cream, salt and pepper<br />
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7. Cook the pasta. Drain and add to the saucepan<br />
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8. Mix through until pasta is covered with sauce<br />
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9. Serve with parmesan and parsley<br />
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My son was appalled the first time I cooked this and told him it had vodka in it. So we fitted in a little chemistry lesson there too about alcohol boiling off when it's cooked, which is about as far as my chemistry knowledge goes :)<br />
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And as you can see, it's well received by even the littlest member of our household ...<br />
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<b>Have you ever cooked with vodka? </b> ... and by that I mean 'do you know any other recipes with vodka in them?' not 'do you cook with a vodka in your hand?' :)
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If you are a blogger, you'd be well and truly familiar by now with <i>The Writing Process Bloghop</i> but if you are not a blogger, I will quickly fill you in: the bloghop focuses on discovering other bloggers' motivation for writing and the process or processes they undergo to achieve their finished products. It consists of four questions which, from a reader's perspective, provide an interesting way to gain an insight into bloggers' thoughts on their own writing and from a writer's perspective, provide an interesting exercise in reflecting on what drives us to do what we do and how our ways of doing it are similar or different from others'. </div>
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<a href="http://borderlandswp.wordpress.com/ink-spilling-an-adventure-for-young-writing/">source</a></div>
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But<i> what is a bloghop?</i> I hear the non-bloggers ask. Well, it's nothing at all like a high school hop. It involves bloggers answering a set of questions and then nominating a certain number of other bloggers (in this case three) who they have connected with through the blogging community to do the same. Back at the end of June, I was nominated by <b>Yvonne Spence</b> who blogs over at <a href="http://yvonnespence.com/">yvonnespence.com</a> and also at <a href="http://inquiringparent.com/">inquiringparent.com</a>. I was supposed to post my own answers a week afterwards, meaning I am now disgracefully late in doing so. </div>
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Yvonne is the author of two books: <a href="http://yvonnespence.com/portfolio-item/looking-for-america/">Looking for America</a>, a collection of short stories set in the Shetland Isles and <a href="http://yvonnespence.com/portfolio-item/drawings-in-sand/">Drawings in the Sand</a>, a novel about transformation and forgiveness. You can read her own responses to <i>The Writing Process</i> bloghop questions <a href="http://inquiringparent.com/2014/07/connections-around-world/">over here.</a></div>
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And now, to get my contribution to the bloghop rolling, I'll share with you my answers to the four questions and then reveal my three nominees.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>What am I working on?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm currently working on banishing my tendency for laziness, excuses and procrastination and finally gluing my butt to a chair for long enough to write the story of my son's and my experience of living in Sicily - what motivated me to pack up my life and take my five year old son to the other side of the world to live indefinitely, the adventures and the tribulations we had while we lived on the island and how those experiences and the people we met there changed our lives in unforeseeable ways in the months and years since we returned home to Australia. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the reasons I think it has taken me so long to start this project is that I had no idea how the story would end. Even before we stepped foot on the island, I already felt a calling to write a book about whatever it was that we would experience there. Initially, I anticipated that it would be a book full of funny anecdotes about linguistic faux pas and quintessential Italians doing funny little quintessential Italian things and hopefully a bit of evidence of personal growth thrown in there for good measure. What I want to write now is still all those things, but it is also involves a darker facet and things I never would have imagined living through or writing about when I began that journey.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first step in starting this project is to gather together and organise all the notes I have written over the last four years. I never wrote notes directly onto a computer the way a sane, organised person would do. My notes were scribbled on the backs of envelopes and bus tickets, on post-it notes, on paper napkins, on the back pages of whatever novel I was reading at the time and yes, occassionally even in notebooks. I have lost count of how many notebooks I own. There has never been any system to how I write in them. It has always been a case of a thought coming to me and me rushing to grab the nearest notebook (or anything else that it is possible to write on) and scrawling down that thought before it gets away.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm quite curious as to what I will find when I begin this organisation process in earnest. Every now and then I pick up something I wrote three or four years ago and I often can't even remember writing it and am sometimes amused, sometimes amazed and sometimes saddened to realise that that was how I was thinking at that particular time.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The nagging desire I used to feel so urgently to eventually have this book published when it is finally written has actually dissipated. What remains is an overwhelming need to put this story into words so that I can piece it all together and finally understand it for myself and so I can lay it all to rest and then move on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>How does your work differ from others in its genre?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In relation to blogging, I think my work falls easily into the genre of 'mummy blogging' because most of my posts focus on aspects of parenting and the misadventures I have had therein. I have diverged from that a little though with the <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/p/italian-lessons.html">Italian lessons</a> I posted here. They are not cut and dry lessons though because they contain stories from our time in Sicily that relate to the respective topics of eachlesson.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other than that, I suppose you could say that my work might differ from others within its genre in terms of its quirkiness. I've always been a little bit unconventional (I grew up in a house without a TV so really, it was destiny) and its difficult to hide that quirkiness when you're writing a blog. Eventually, over time, you're either going to stop blogging, or your authentic self is going to emerge. Gradually, the latter is happening to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>Why do I write what I do?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The short answer to that is that is stops me going insane. I wrote the long answer in <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/one-year-of-blogging-good-bad-and.html">the post I wrote to celebrate my one year blogiversary</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>How does my writing process work?</b></span></div>
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My head is constantly swarming with ideas for blog posts and other genres of writing, but my problem is that I rarely have time to write them down. Often, when I'm hanging out washing or doing dishes or sorting clothes, I compose posts in my head. Even if I never get the chance to sit down and type them out, I still get that feeling of creative satisfaction.</div>
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The posts that do make it to the blog and usually already composed in my head by the time I sit down in front of the computer. This process works well for me in terms of time management - I compose a post mentally when I can't be at the computer and when I can, I punch it out as quickly as possible (hence the frequency of my typos!)</div>
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Sometimes, though, I'll sit down at the computer and then I'll suddenly be hit by how tired I am and I never push myself to write through that tiredness. I have far too much respect for the healing properties of sleep and the perils of evading them. On those nights, I'll usually type paragraph headings so that I have an outline of what I am going to write in each paragraph. Once I've done that, I feel like I've actually done the hard part (even though it only took a few minutes) and that all I really have to do is pad it out later and I'm done. Then I go to sleep and, with a clear plan in my head of the structure of my post, my subconscious ticks away and I know that what I eventually end up writing is infinitely better than what I would have written if I'd forced myself to stay up and write in a state of exhaustion.</div>
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When it comes to content, I believe that since blogging is my hobby and therefore not something I am obliged to do, that it should be a source of joy and so if I had planned to write a post on a particular topic on a particular day but when that day comes I don't feel that writing that would bring me joy, then I write about something else that does. I don't think about what will be popular out there on the world wide web, I just think about playing around with words and allowing them to bring joy into my life.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>And now for the nominees ...</b></span><br />
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These three writers are all Australian-based bloggers who I have met (virtually) during my first year of blogging. Each of them is extremely gifted with words and I am inspired by their achievements and their individual perspectives on life. If you haven't discovered them yet, I really recommend finding them online via the links below in their bios. But that's enough from me, let's talk about them!</div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;">Rita Azar</span></b></div>
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Rita is a writer, blogger and crafter. She's a French Canadian woman with a Lebanese background now living in Melbourne. She speaks French and Arabic and is now learning Italian. She's a Canadian lawyer who also completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism at RMIT University. But now that she has reconnected with her love for writing, she is working on editing her first novel and thinks that this is certainly one of the most challenging things she has ever done. </div>
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Rita blogs at <a href="http://thecraftyexpat.com/" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://thecraftyexpat.com</a>. <wbr></wbr>You can also follow her here:</div>
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<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Facebook Page</strong>:</em> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheCraftyExpat" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" style="color: #1155cc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="The Crafty Expat">The Crafty Expat</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bloglovin</strong>:</em> <a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/6218453" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" style="color: #1155cc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Bloglovin">The Crafty Expat</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Twitter</strong>:</em> <a href="http://twitter.com/RitaAzar2" rel="nofollow" shape="rect" style="color: #1155cc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank" title="Twitter">@RitaAzar2</a></li>
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;">Francesca Suters</span></b><br />
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Francesca is a thirty-something Australian woman who wears many hats (figuratively - she's not literally much of a hat person). She has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from the University of Newcastle and currently works part-time in a corporate setting. Since she was a child, she has always loved writing. In adulthood, Francesca pursues this interest through blogging, a hobby which is flexible enough to fit around her responsibilities as a working parent. Francesca has just published her first novel, <i>Returning</i>, which is available as a paperback and an ebook.<br />
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Her book website is <a href="http://www.francescasuters.weebly.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0066cc;">www.francescasuters.weebly.com</span></a></div>
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Her Facebook pages are:</div>
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<li style="margin-left: 15px;">Author page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FrancescaSuters" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>FrancescaSuters</a></li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">Blog page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/francescawriteshere" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>francescawriteshere</a></li>
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Her Twitter is <a href="https://twitter.com/FWritesHere" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/<wbr></wbr>FWritesHere</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: x-large;"><b>Kathy Kruger</b></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US">Kathy is an adoptive mother of two beautiful kids from China who blogs about going with the flow, finding balance, embracing change, and being grateful at </span><a href="http://www.yinyangmother.com./" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank"><span lang="EN-US">www.yinyangmother.com.</span></a><span lang="EN-US"> </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">A former journalist, Kathy shares insights from her long journey to motherhood and her life lessons about healing – the gift of loss is indeed the joy of gain.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Kathy loves words, wisdom and wine (not necessarily in that order). She practices yoga and meditation and her latest project is creating short meditation videos for children, using the visual medium to calm kids in our busy and overstimulated world! </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Connect with Kathy [<a href="http://www.facebook.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/</a> yinyangmother], Twitter [yinyangmother@yinyangmother] </span></div>
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<b>Is writing your hobby, your passion or your job? How would you describe your writing process?</b></div>
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Back in April, my kids and I took a spontaneous train trip into the city of Perth one Friday evening after school and when we arrived, we found ourselves, unexpectedly, in the middle of <a href="http://twilighthawkersmarket.com/blog/">The Twilight Hawkers Market</a>, an international street food festival.<br />
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After wandering around all the stalls, we decided we wanted to have something Brazilian for dinner. We stopped at a food truck called Comida do Sul, which is run by two beautiful Brazilian sisters (you can find them on instagram <a href="http://instagram.com/comidadosul">@comidadosul</a> and also a photo they took of Ben and me eating over <a href="http://instagram.com/p/mXPLboF6mz/">here</a>.)<br />
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I ordered a meal called <i>Vegetarian Prato Feito. </i>It looked like this (sorry that I hacked into it before I remembered to take a photo - it smelt so good I just couldn't help myself. I'll never cut it as a food photographer!)<br />
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So for weeks now, I have had a post-it note stuck to my fridge with the words <i>Prato Feito</i> on it - a reminder to myself to research this dish and make it myself. Everyone who has visited in that time and sat in my kitchen has eventually asked what it is and now, after a lot of investigation and a lot of time spent over at google translate, I am finally able to shed some light on the answer. Well, sort of.<br />
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Hunting down an actually recipe for <i>Prato Feito</i> was much harder than I thought it would be. After reading lots of different Brazilian blogs, this was what I had found out:<br />
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* '<i>Prato</i>' means 'dish' and '<i>Feito</i>' means 'made', 'done' or 'created', so possible English translations of the dish could be 'made meal', 'done dish' or a 'put-together plate' - none of which sound nearly as enticing as they do in Portuguese, do they?<br />
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* Contrary to being something exotic, Prato Feito (or PF as it is usually known) is a common meal, akin to a counter meal in Australian culture.<br />
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*Generally, it consists of a piece of meat (usually steak), some chips, rice, egg and beans.<br />
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* The egg can be served in any way the cook/customer choses and a vegetarian version simply replaces the meat with some tasy meatless treat.<br />
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Here is my version of my 'put-together plate' - oven-baked chips, rice with sauteed onions and mushroom (instead of meat), buttered beans and boiled egg with parsley.<br />
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I'm still searching for the combination of flavours that the sisters used and until I do, my Prato Feitos will have to be quite anglicised versions!<br />
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What I <i>did </i>find in my hunt for an elusive vegetarian PF recipe was some instructions on how to prepare it using pork. I stuck the text into google translate and stared back at the screen in horror, but when I realised what must have happened, it quickly turned into an epic LOL moment. Now at the risk of sounding critical of google translate, I'd like to state that I think that on the whole it provides an optimal service, but there are instances (especially when it comes to homographs I found) when it can also leave you more than slightly confused.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Allow me to explain. It seems that the Portuguese word <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">miĂşdos </i>has two meanings: the first is 'kids' (as in children) and the second is 'giblets' - giblets being the offal inside a bird, chicken, turkey or, as in this case, pig (I learnt a new English word in the process as well as a Portuguese one!) So </span></span><i style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">miĂşdos de porco </i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">are pig giblets.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">Anyway, what appears to have happened is that google translate favoured the first meaning of the word </span><i style="font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">miĂşdos </i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">over the second and so the recipe came out like this:</span><br />
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.299999237060547px;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b><i>Put the kids pig on the fire with water, enough lemon juice and sliced ​​lemons in half. Bring to a boil, change water and bring to a boil again. Chop the kids. Add all the spices. The next morning, fry the spices and the kids. Add water and cook two to three hours until the kids are nice and soft. Pour in the blood and let thicken.</i></b></span></div>
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Mmm, yum yum ...can't say I'm sorry I made the veggie version instead!!<br />
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<b>Have you ever had a funny google translate moment?</b></div>
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<b>Do you know any other Brazilian recipes? (preferably ones without kids in them please!)</b></div>
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My daughter has reached that delightful, precursor-to-toilet-training age where, upon filling her nappy or 'producing the goods' (as my mother so euphemistically terms it), she will take off her pants, undo her nappy and leave it wherever she happens to be standing at the time.<br />
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Now I'm quite sure that none of you out there would be particularly impressed with a photo of one of the genuine articles mentioned in the above scenario, so here is a photo of how her brother and I react when we discover one of these said articles.<br />
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In observing his only sibling evolve from a tiny baby into an independent-minded miniature little lady, my son is both endearingly fascinated and mildly disturbed by some of her behaviours. One of his most frequent questions to me these days is: "Did <i>I</i> do that when <i>I</i> was a baby?"<br />
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Last week, after Annalisa had houdinied her way out of her outfit, stripped off her nappy and smeared its contents all over Ben's bike in the time it took me to take the shopping in from the car, he asked me just that.<br />
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"Well, you didn't do exactly that", I answered him. "But you did do a couple of things even worse than that which involved poo".<br />
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"What were they?" he said, with the intonation of excitement that most nine-year-old boys tend to revert to when talking about poo.<br />
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It seems it was time to open the floodgates of memory lane.<br />
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"When you were a little bit older than Annalisa is now," I told him, "I thought you were having an extra long sleep-in one morning. I went into your room and discovered that you weren't sleeping at all and that you had done an enormous poo, taken off your pyjamas and your nappy and had painted your cot and the walls in it. It took me all morning to clean the cot and the sheets and your clothes and the walls. And you".<br />
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He squealed with laughter.<br />
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I actually have photographic evidence somewhere of this natural disaster, but I'm not going to go searching for it as I'm quite sure you'd rather be spared from that too. I will say, however, that it was an event which cemented itself firmly in my mind forevermore as the a-poo-calypse.<br />
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And yet, this is not even my most memorable poo story.<br />
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"What's the other thing I did with poo?" he asked, jumping up and down on one leg in anticipation.<br />
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As I whiped poo off Ben's bike, he sat down on the grass beside me and seeing as this was one of those rare occasions where I had his complete attention, I told him that story too. It went like this ...<br />
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When he was little and we lived up in the tropics in Darwin I'd often let him run around in just his nappy if we were just at home for the day.<br />
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That meant it was really easy for him to undo his nappy whenever he wanted to and as he got older he used to do it a lot. Sometimes he'd take the nappy off even when there was nothing in it just so he could run around naked. (He squealed with laughter again when I said the word 'naked').<br />
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One afternoon, I was waiting for an electrician to come round to our house and fix up a problem we had with the electricity in the lounge room. When he arrived and knocked on the door, I realised that Ben had taken off his nappy again. I located the nappy, but because it didn't have any wee or poo in it (insert giggles) I put it back on him and answered the door.<br />
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This was the first time I'd met this electrician. I didn't tell Ben that he was of Mediterranean heritage and about a generation and a half older than I was. I left that out because I thought the significance of this information would probably be lost on him. What happened during the electrician's visit was bad enough without adding the fact that Mediterranean men, particularly ones belonging to older generations, usually have very set ideas about how a housewife should look after a home. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.<br />
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At first the electrician was really friendly and chatty and told me what a beautiful baby Ben was. I asked him if he'd like a coffee, he said yes, and I went off to make it while he checked all the electrical plugs in the lounge room.<br />
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When I came back with the coffee, it was like he was a completely different person. The smile had left his face.<br />
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'It's all fixed', he said flatly.<br />
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'That was fast', I told him.<br />
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He grunted something inaudible.<br />
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I handed him the coffee and he drank it so fast I'm surprised he didn't burn a hole in his gullet.<br />
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'I'll send you the bill in the mail', he said, handing back the cup, packing up his toolbox and heading out the door. without so much as a 'thank you' or a 'goodbye'.<br />
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After he left, I stood there in the loungeroom and pondered what had just occurred. How was it possible for someone to walk in the door in such a good mood and to exit it ten minutes later in such a bad one for no apparent reason? It couldn't have been that he didn't like the way I made coffee; he was grumpy before I even handed it to him. Was it something I said? But it couldn't be - I hadn't said anything to him between asking him if he wanted a coffee and brining it back to him.<br />
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I paced around the room trying to make some sense of it all and then, as I rounded the corner and stepped behind the sofa I saw it ...<br />
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Right there on the floor, in front of a power point, hidden from view from where I had been standing before, was a great, ginormous log of poo.<br />
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<b>What memories of poo do you have? Please don't be shy - regale me with your poo tales ... or have you banished them from memory? </b><br />
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Now I've heard that chilli is very good for whipping up the metaboloism and I like that very much since it means I feel no guilt whatsoever in slugging back vast quanities of this drink, knowing that the chilli counteracts the chocolate and my now super-fast metabolism will just burn it off before I even have time to think about it. So far this Winter that theory's been working out well for me. I'm sure my jeans just shrunk in the wash this week and the extra long time it took me to button them up had nothing to do with my affection for this beverage.<br />
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Here is the recipe. It will make you two delicious cups of hot chilli chocolately heaven.<br />
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<b>Ingredients</b>:<br />
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2 cups of milk<br />
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2 reeds of chilli, split and seeds removed (just use one chilli if you'd prefer a milder version)<br />
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1/2 a vanilla bean. split (or a splosh of vanilla essence if you don't have a bean)<br />
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1 cinnamon stick (can use a few shakes of ground cinnamon if you don't have a stick)<br />
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Half a block of cooking chocolate, grated<br />
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<b>Method:</b><br />
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1. Simmer milk in pan with vanilla, cinnamon and chilli<br />
<br />
2. Heat through for approximately one minute<br />
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3. Whisk in grated chocolate and continue to simmer until melted<br />
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4. Remove from heat and leave to infuse for 10 minutes before drinking<br />
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5. Get drinking! (and if you have blocked sinuses, get ready to have them blasted back to normal)<br />
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<b>Do you have a favourite type of hot chocolate?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Have you ever tried hot chilli chocolate?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Do you know any other fun recipes with chillies?</b><br />
<br />
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I have often wished I could eat my words and last night I did just that ... with the help of my son and some cookie dough.<br />
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We've always loved playing word games together and after owning a set of alphabet cookie cutters for the last six years and never even taking them out of the box, I decided the time had come to put them to good use and make up an edible word game.<br />
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While Ben was at school yesterday, I got out a pen and paper and, through trial and error, came up with nine special six-letter words. What's special about these words is that you can take one letter out of the original six, rearrange them and they will form a new word. Then you take a letter out of the remaining five, rearrange them and they form another new word, and so on until you are left with a single letter word (I or A).<br />
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When I'd done that, I wrote out the rules of the game for him:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>Rules of The Edible Word Game</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">1. After deciding which player is going to go first, that player looks at the six letter word in front of them and works out which letter they can take out so that the remaining five letters form a word. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">2. The player then eats the letter s/he has taken out and it becomes the next player's turn.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">3. Players can rearrange the remaining letters if they need to but do not have to if it is not necessary.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">4. The game continues until only a single letter word remains. The player whose turn it would be directly after the player who ate a letter from the two-letter word is allowed to eat this last letter. This game works best with two or three players so that there is an even distribution of cookies in each round. (<span style="font-size: x-small;">My son is not a fan of diseven distribution!)</span></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">5. All words used must be words you would find in an English dictionary.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">6. All players must remember to chew with their mouths closed.</span></i><br />
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When he got home from school, we made the cookie dough and cut it into the letters we needed (I didn't show him the process from getting from the six-letter words to the one-letters words, I just let him know each of the six letter words so he'd know which letters to cut out).<br />
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I made him wait until after dinner before we played and by then he was just about jumping out of his skin with excitement, his competitive spirit being just as much to blame for that as his anticipation of eating large quantities of choc chip cookies.<br />
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Here is how we played out the nine rounds:<br />
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Here are some things I have learnt while we were playing:<br />
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1. Each round gets easier and faster as you go along. That means you have to eat faster too.<br />
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2. I got so caught up in the excitement of preparing to play that I didn't really think about the fact that for two people to play nine rounds would mean eating 27 cookies each. We didn't actually end up eating 27 cookies each. But we gave it a good shot.<br />
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3. There are word possibilities other than the ones we used. For instance, <i>rats </i>could also be <i>star</i>, <i>mane </i>could also be <i>name</i>, <i>cane </i>could also be <i>acne</i>, <i>eat </i>could also be <i>tea</i>, <i>team </i>could also be <i>meat </i>or <i>mate</i>, <i>darn </i>could also be <i>rand</i>, <i>dance </i>could also be <i>caned </i>and <i>stare </i>could also be <i>tears.</i><br />
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4. Likewise, there are also other possible word patterns for some of the rounds. The round that went <i>master</i>, <i>steam</i>, <i>team</i>, <i>eat</i>, <i>at</i>, <i>a </i>could also have gone <i>master</i>, <i>steam</i>, <i>seam</i>, <i>sea</i>, <i>as</i>, <i>a; </i>the round that went <i>Easter, stare, rats, sat. at. a could alos have gone Easter, tears, star, tar, at, a </i>and the round that went <i>please, lapse, slap, sap, as a </i>could also have gone<i> please, lease, ease, sea, as, a. </i><br />
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5. It is possible to put a spanner in the works and muck up a round by thinking you are on the right track then coming to a point where you can't go any further. For example, if you went from <i>garden </i>to <i>grade </i>instead of <i>grand</i>, you could then move onto <i>dare </i>and then <i>are</i>, but then you wouldn't be able to go any further. To try and avoid this, I went first in each round to move the game in the right direction.<br />
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If I ever play with this with an adult one day rather than a child, I am going to write into the rules a suitable punishment for any person responsible for destroying the game. Assuming they had already gobbled up the wrong letters and the original word can't be reconstructed, they should be forced to forfeit all remaining cookies on the table to the other player. And considering that I would have thought up the words and their solutions before the start of play (leaving the other player at a distinct disadvantage), I think this rule will work considerably well in my favour!<br />
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<center>
<a href="http://www.withsomegrace.com/fybf-2/">
<img src="http://www.withsomegrace.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/fybf.gif" width="155" /></a></center>
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<a href="http://meltingmoments.net/" title="Melting Moments"><img alt="Melting Moments" src="http://meltingmoments.net/site/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/weeklywrapup.jpg" style="border: none;" /></a><br />
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<b>Do you have a favourite word game?</b><br />
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<b>Could you make an edible version of it?</b><br />
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<b>Could you eat 27 cookies in one sitting?</b><br />
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<b>Do you know any other special six-letters words you could send my way? </b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-18065303538415624442014-05-27T00:32:00.000+08:002014-05-27T21:51:34.483+08:00One Year of Blogging: The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Yesterday, I realised that my little blog is now a year old. Actually, it's a year and a week old as I write this, but I thought I would write a celebratory post anyway, since I have resigned myself to fact that everything I do in life I either do too early or too late. In keeping with the festive spirit of<b> <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/time-for-some-blogging-confessions.html">my blog's half birthday</a>, </b>I made myself a cake (any excuse for a cake will do round here!)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><i>It's no masterpiece, but it was yummy! The M&M's were my feeble attempt to come up with something to represent my blog title :)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Blogging has come to mean many things to me over the past year: a platform for reflection, a creative outlet and an opportunity for social connection. It has also helped me to slowly discover the writer inside of me and has forced me to accept my failures and my imperfections and to see both of these as gifts, rather than reasons to give in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I started this blog on a whim one morning in May last year. While my newborn was sleeping, I wrote my first few posts in a notebook with no intention of every putting them online, but purely because I felt compelled to pick up a pen and write. In a conversation with one of my sisters not long afterwards, I told her I had done this and she suggested I start a blog. It wasn't actually the first time she'd encouraged me to blog - at the beginning of 2012, I started a book blog called <a href="http://www.readingdangerously.com/">The Year of Reading Dangerously</a>. That 'year' only ended up lasting three weeks and a total of just three posts as I got too busy with my day job to keep it up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I took up my sister's advice in earnest the second time round though and typed up those words I had written in my notebook. Being impulsive and impatient by nature, I didn't give any thought to the direction my blog would head in and I thought up my blog title in about three minutes. I've wondered many times over the past twelve months about what I would have done differently had I invested the time to research exactly what a blog is and how to actually go about blogging - two things I knew very little about this time last year. I would have made it easier for myself if I had, but I also think that if I'd spent too much time deliberating on how to create the perfect blog, I would never have started at all!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Tonight, to mark my belated blogiversary, I want to refect on what I feel has been the good, the bad and the beautiful aspects of blogging for me so far.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>The Good</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b>
<b>* </b>Blogging has cured me of my inclination towards perfectionism. If I allowed myself to wait until I was satisfied that a post was perfect, I would never once have pressed that publish button.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Since I <b><a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/i-meant-to-make-friend-at-mothers-group.html">failed at Mothers' Group</a></b> and was living, for the first nine months of keeping this blog, in a situation where I was very isolated socially, blogging became not only my surrogate Mothers' Group, by also my book club, my writers' group and my place to focus on the good things that I had in life, so that I wouldn't drown wallowing in the bad. Only when I removed myself from that situation and that isolation did I realise how much blogging had helped me through that period.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* The opportunity to connect with bloggers from all over the world has been amazing. I feel so lucky to live in the era that we live in and to be able to develop friendships with bloggers not only in Australia, but also in the US, the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Tonga, Malaysia, Dubai, Singapore and Jamaica.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Reading other parents' blogs has inspired me to become a more creative and energetic parent myself. I'm still not crafty, but I have challenged myself to go about being creative in my own little way through <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/p/the-alphabet-weekends.html">The Alphabet Weekends</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Food. Over the last year, my desire to cook and to learn everything I can about food has increased exponentially. I have a lot of very accomplished cooks in the blogosphere to thank for that inspiration.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Instagram. A year ago I was connected to a grand total of zero social networks. I never thought that I would be interested at all in something like Instagram; I've just never really been into social media. But last Christmas, I was staying for a little over a week with family and had no opportunity to blog and was really missing it. So I created an instagram account. It instantly felt like 'micro-blogging' and I have loved it ever since.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Okay, now for the bad. Although the positives I have encountered through blogging outweigh the negatives a hundredfold, I want to be honest - it hasn't all been roses and rainbows.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b><br /></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Bad</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Bloody Google Plus comments. I swear that thing is like a jealous lover. It just messes with my head. Some days, readers will go to comment on a post and won't be able to. Other times, some or <i>all </i>of my comments just randomly disappear altogether, only to return as if nothing has happened a day or two later after I've already ripped my hair out and sworn I'll never blog again. Once I made the mistake of thinking I could break up with Mr Google Plus once and for all and go and get myself a nice new domain name. But no, he decided that if I did that, he would take all my comments and hide them and never give them back. So I had to go back to him, with my tail between my legs, because those comments were too precious to me. I know he was there plotting away and thinking to himself: "Ahuh! So she wants to get rid of me! We'll see about that!" So here I am, married to Google Plus till death do us part. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Sometimes I've sensed that there are some blogging cliques floating round the blogosphere and I'm just too much of a dork to be let into their circle. But there have also been other times when blogging groups that were clearly well established already have welcomed me in with open arms, so it's not something I dwell on too much.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* There have been occasions when I've been super excited to find a new blogger who I think I have a lot in common with and have reached out several times to try to make contact and been ignored every time. These experiences have taught me a valuable lesson though: do not chase people. Just keep doing your thing and your tribe will find you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* The few times I've encountered some negative feedback. When I first started browsing other people's blogs and read about trolls, I remember thinking to myself: "If that ever happens to me, I'm going to quit writing straight away". I just thought it would be something that I would not be able to handle. Funnily enough, when it did happen, it affected me so much less than I'd thought it would. I guess in the scheme of things, rude or stupid comments are just that - rude and stupid. At the end of the day, it's not like I have to have the writers of them come round for dinner at my house.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And now, for ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;"><b>The Beautiful</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">* </span>Finding people through the blogosphere who I have really connected with and whom I hope to meet in real life one day.</span><br />
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* Those bloggers who really went above and beyond what I ever would have expected in terms of support when they sensed that I was going through a really difficult period. Even if I never get the chance to meet you in person, I will be eternally grateful to you <a href="http://myjourney20-me.blogspot.com.au/">Linda</a>, <a href="http://www.findingninee.com/">Kristi</a> and <a href="http://thecraftyexpat.com/">Rita</a>.</span><br />
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* Reconnecting with some long-lost friends who have found my blog through a mutual friend or through social media.</span><br />
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* Being able to use blogging as a platform for expressing my love, appreciation and admiration for special people in my life, especially <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/of-autumn-and-innocence.html">my mum</a> and <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/its-not-every-day-your-best-friend.html">my best friend</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* Writing something that was daringly honest and then having many readers respond by being honest and open themselves about their own pent up feelings.</span><br />
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* Without a doubt, blogging has helped me to cultivate a frame of mind where I am constantly on the lookout to find beauty and beautiful stories in my everyday life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">* This last one is very personal and very close to my heart. Several weeks ago, I was in a pretty bad mood with my blog. I was feeling that it was a complete waste of time and was very nearly ready to press delete and boot the whole thing to kingdom come. Then I got a call from a friend who was going through some very seriously stressful stuff in her life. She had read some of my early posts when I first started to write, but had been too busy to keep up with them as the months went on. She told me that she had come home from what had possible been the worst day of her life, sat down at the computer, started to type in the URL of an unrelated site and the URL of my blog popped up because it started with the same letter. She opened it up and started reading. "I must have read for at least two hours", she said. "And do you know what I saw in your writing?" "What?" I asked a bit hesistantly. "Knowing you personally and knowing everything you were going through during those months, I saw how positive you tried to keep yourself during that time. It made me realise that I can do the same. It probably saved my life". I was speechless. I never would have dreamed that this little space that I created could have achieved something like that. So I didn't press delete and I realised that it was my own negative self talk that was a waste of time, not my blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So tonight as I ask myself for the umpteenth time what I would do differently if I could start my blogging journey all over again, the answer is nothing. Nothing at all. I have made mistakes, but those mistakes are my own and they have been my greatest teachers. The words that poured out of me in every post over the last twelve months have been genuine, spontaneous and imperfect. They remind me of just who I was the day I wrote each one. And I wouldn't have it any other way. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What are some of the goods, the bads and the beautifuls you've discovered through blogging?</span></b><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Would you do anything differently if you could start again?</span></b><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-9495088706002781232014-05-24T11:22:00.000+08:002014-05-24T22:52:40.509+08:00Embracing The Cold"What good is the warmth of Summer", wrote Steinbeck, "without the cold of Winter to give it sweetness?"<br />
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I've been pondering the wisdom of these words these last couple of weeks as I've read, with a twinge of envy, of my blogging counterparts in the northern hemisphere starting to welcome in the sunshine while here in Western Australia the days are getting darker and the rain and the wind are becoming daily visitors. I've always loved warm weather and detested the cold with equal passion. The four years I spent living in Darwin, in Australia's tropical north, were blissfully balmy and laid back; I only owned one jumper in all that time and only ever wore it whenever I went to the cinema, where the aircon was always set far too cold. On the other hand, the year I spent in Sweden, with its extremes of dark and cold, challenged me on a level I had never been stretched to before. I remember the day in January I left Australia was 37 degrees C (98.6 degrees F). I arrived in Sweden 24 hours later to -17 degrees C (1.4 degrees F). The climatic culture shock was collosal. I was convinced I would never be warm again. The Swedes have a very philosophical way of approaching the Winter, however. They have a saying I heard many times over the course of that year:<i> <span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder</span></span></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> - </i><i>There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So as the last days of Autumn fade away and my least favourite season kicks in for good, I thought that rather than going into complete hibernation (as I am more than tempted to do) that I would focus on the things I actually enjoy about Winter. I can't count snowmen or snow fights or snow angels or any other snow-related pasttimes for obvious reasons, but I will do my best nonetheless ... </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Ten Things I love about Winter</i></span><br />
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1. <b>Coats</b>. A coat, as they rightly say, can hide a multitude of sins. For me, those sins usually involve going to pick up my son from school with my pyjama top still on at 3 o'clock in the afternoon but zipped up under my trusty coat, no-one is any the wiser.<br />
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2. <b>Hot chocolate</b>. Need I say more? Hot chocolate just has a way of warming the cockles of the heart.<br />
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3. <b>Movies and snuggling</b>. I've been putting on lots of movies recently and cuddling up on the couch with my munchkins. I feel much less guilty about letting them watch the box when it's pouring with rain outside :)<br />
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4. <b>Not having to water the garden</b>. I know this really shouldn't be on the list because I do love my garden, but I am lazy by nature and love the fact that nature takes over at this time of year and gives me a break from that chore.<br />
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5.<b>Not having to wash the car</b>. Who am I kidding? As if I ever wash it anyway. But at least in Winter it looks clean!<br />
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6. <b>Footy season</b>. There are definitely reasons why the (Australian Rules) football season should <i>not </i>make the list (driving long distances to stand out in the elements early on Saturday morning does not exactly rate as one of my favourite pasttimes!) but Ben is loving the sport so much that I would do it every morning just to witness his excitement each time I take him to a match. It's been a great way for him to forge new friendships as the new kid at school too.<br />
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7. <b>Minestrone</b>. It takes me all morning to chop up the veggies but I suppose that keeps me out of trouble and the result is always worth it - a warm and hearty meal that always lasts several days. Annalisa, my fussy eater, loves it too. She gobbles it up and the warm broth in her tummy always makes her sleep better than usual afterwards.<br />
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8. <b>The flies fly away at long last</b>. I cannot stress enough just how wonderful it is to be heading out of fly season. These pests seem to have multiplied vastly in number in the last few years. Or maybe I am just becoming more neurotic!<br />
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9. <b>Not having to choose between suncream or sunburn when going out for a walk</b>. When there is a break in the rain and we dare to venture out for a stroll with Annalisa in the pram, the late Autumn light is soft and gentle on our skin. Living in this part of Australia means really having to take skin protection serious; that hole in the ozone is pretty close to us!<br />
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10. <b>Hot water bottles</b>. On chilly mornings if I wake up before the kids, I like to make myself a hot water bottle and curl up with it on the sofa with a book. This week I'm reading (rather appropriately) <i>A Week in Winter </i>by Maeve Binchy.<i> </i>Maeve always puts me in a good mood in the mornings and helps my brain to unwind in the evenings.<br />
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There, I did it! Perhaps there's no need to go into hiberation after all :)<br />
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<b>What do you love most about Winter?</b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-5522712225402329292014-05-15T22:25:00.000+08:002014-05-16T21:58:44.150+08:00The Man in the Pink SkirtThe week's flown by and it's <a href="http://www.janinehuldie.com/">Finish the Sentence Friday</a> again where the sentence to finish this week is <b>"This nicest thing someone ever did for me was ..."</b><br />
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The nicest thing someone ever did for me was to tell me to pull myself together and get my life back in order, but that's a bit deep and I don't really feel like going into that right now. What I do feel like talking about is the story behind an old photograph that I stumbled upon during the week.<br />
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As<b> <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/once-on-halloween.html">I've mentioned before</a></b>, I spent the year I turned 18 living in Sweden as an exchange student. During the summer that year, all the students from around the world who were staying in Sweden as part of the Rotary International Program went on a three week bus trip around Europe. It was full of trips to places that those of us who are now parents are itching to tell our children about, and escapades that I'm sure most of us hope they never find out about. Today's story, to the relief of some and the possible disappointment of others, does not fit into that category, however. It does contain a man in a pink skirt though.<br />
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One night on our Eurotour, we visited a large fair in Vienna where a bungee jumping platform had been set up. Ever since I was nine years old and saw a video of my much older cousin bungee jumping on an adventure holiday in New Zealand, I had been dreaming about doing it myself. Granted, the bungee at the fair wasn't quite as high and the one she did over some gigantic waterfall, but it was good enough for me. The only problem was, I hadn't come prepared. Not having any idea that this opportunity would arise that night, I had not dressed appropriately. I was wearing a skirt which I'm sure that without having to stretch the imagination very far, you can picture what a spectacle it would have made.<br />
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So I stood with a group of friends and watched those others in our group who had come wearing underwear-covering clothing take the plunge. I was resigning myself to the fact that my bungee jumping dream would have to be prolonged for the foreseeable future, when a mate of mine called Andrew piped up and said:<br />
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"Why don't we swap clothes?"<br />
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"Pardon?" I said, a bit taken aback (this being the first - and I'm pretty sure only - time that a male has proposed this to me).<br />
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"Why don't you pop on my shorts so you can do the jump and I'll wear your skirt in the meantime?"<br />
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"Really?!" I squealed. "Are you sure? You do know my skirt is pink, don't you?" Andrew was the kind of guy who was sweet and sensitive, but also very much into football and dressing very much like a man.<br />
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"Yeah", he said laughing, "It's okay".<br />
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"You can't hide in the toilets the whole time I'm lining up waiting for the jump and then having my turn though". There was quite a queue for the bungee. He was going to wearing that skirt for a while.<br />
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"Nah, don't worry", he smiled, "We can go to the bathrooms together, swap clothes, then you go off and do the jump and I'll go back and get a pancake at the stall we saw before and sit and wait for you there."<br />
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So we did just that. Well, almost.<br />
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<i>(Here I am all togged out in Andrew's shorts. I'm the one on the right. </i><i>I did the bungee tandem with another friend, an exchange student from the USA. </i><i>I don't remember where the shirt came from. I must have borrowed it from someone else, hopefully not female). </i><br />
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We did the going to the bathroom together bit and the swapping clothes bit (and I just had to have a photo of him in my skirt!) Then I did the going off and bungee jumping in Andrew's shorts bit and Andrew did the going and buying a pancake and eating it while waiting for me bit. But this is where things stopped going to plan.<br />
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You see, I've never had a very good sense of direction and, as I mentioned, this was a very large fair. So after the adrenalin rush of plumetting through the air attached to an elastic cord, I kind of lost my sense of direction a little bit. Okay, I lost it completely.<br />
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I couldn't for the life of me remember where that pancake stall was. With another friend in tow, we scoured the stalls up and down for Andrew. This was, of course, in the days before mobile phones. If it hadn't been, this story would not be nearly as memorable. The tricky thing was that there seemed to be quite a few pancake stalls and I couldn't remember which one he must have meant. Eventually, we found a stall which we deduced must have been the one he had meant, but no Andrew was to be found.<br />
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What happened is that Andrew, after waiting more than patiently for what must have felt like a very long time, decided I must have forgotten about him and went off to find me.<br />
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Unfortunately, even with both parties trying our best to find each other, we ended up chasing each other around in circles.<br />
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The long and the short of it is that poor Andrew spent over an hour walking around a fair all by himself wearing a pink skirt.<br />
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So the next time you offer to swap clothes with someone, be warned - you may inadvertently bite off more than you feel like chewing. But to his eternal credit, he was a really good sport about it all.<br />
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Andrew and I have lost touch over the years, but I thought I would keep his face out of the photo because I do know that he has quite a high-profile job these days and would probably be more than unimpressed if some of his colleagues or clients got their eyes on photos of him thus attired.<br />
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Every time someone mentions bungee jumping, I think of how lovely it was for him to do that for me ... but sometimes I do wonder what must go through <i>his </i>mind any time someone mentions those words!<br />
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<a href="http://janinehuldie.com/" target="_blank" title="Janine's Confessions of A Mommyaholic"><img alt="Janine's Confessions of A Mommyaholic" src="http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo325/zepplin305/BlogHopButton.jpg" style="border: none;" /></a><br />
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<b>Have you ever been bungee jumping?</b><br />
<b>Have you ever got lost at a fair?</b><br />
<b>And most importantly - have you ever swapped clothes with a man??</b><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-50396393550021228962014-05-14T06:52:00.000+08:002014-05-14T06:52:07.878+08:00International Blog Swap Day - Introducing Polly<br />
Today is a very special day on my blog as I'm hosting my first guest post from Polly, the creator of the UK lifestyle blog <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/">This Enchanted Pixie</a> as part of the International Blog Swap Day. I am also featured today over on her site if you want to take a look. So without further ado, I hand you over to Polly ....<br />
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Hello!! I'm excited to be blog swapping with the lovely Lizzy today!<br />
<img src="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/family.jpg" width="100%" />
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My name is Polly, and I'm wife to a bearded man and Mama to three girls - Lola who will be 11 tomorrow, Kiki who is 7 {and a very important half} and Baya who is 5. We live in a little town in North Wales, close to the sea and the mountains. We live in a 200 year old house right next door to a beautiful church. Our house is always full of noise, mess, glitter and most importantly, laughter.
I started my current <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/" target="_blank">blog</a> when my youngest was a baby, as a way to document our days, to meet other mama's and to give myself a little creative outlet.<br />
<img src="http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/aa440/pixie_polly/8.jpg" width="100%" />
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I've been a stay-at-home mama since my eldest was born. These days I'm also a professional blogger and indie business owner. I run two businesses - a <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.storenvy.com/" target="_blank" title="Enchanted - Boho Jewelry for the free-spirited">jewelry shop</a> and a <a href="http://cariadon.storenvy.com/" target="_blank" title="Cariadon - Eco-Friendly Bath + Body Products">bath + body shop</a>.
We also home-school our three daughters, and have for the past seven years. It's been a fantastic journey, we have a lot of fun together, learning about the things that grab their interests, exploring the world around us, making and creating every single day. You can read a FAQ post I wrote about Homeschooling <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/2014/02/18/homeschooling-q/" target="_blank">here</a>, and I have just started a new series entitled '<a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/tag/homeschooling-looks-like-this/#" target="_blank">Homeschooling looks like...</a>"<br />
<img alt="dogems" src="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/dogems.jpg" width="100%" />
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Aside's from writing about homeschooling, I also blog about <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/category/things-i-love/" target="_blank">Things I love</a>, <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/category/bits-pieces/" target="_blank">bits + pieces</a> of our daily life, <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/category/diy/" target="_blank">crafts</a>, <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/category/recipes/" target="_blank">recipes</a> and <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/category/inspiration/" target="_blank">inspiration</a>!
We just got a new kitten called Olaf - an addition to our two other cats, two guinea pigs and four chickens! I dream of living on a small holding and having a whole menagerie of animals.<br />
<img src="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/olaf.jpg" width="100%" />
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You can read more about me, and find some of my favourite posts <a href="http://thisenchantedpixie.org/about/" target="_blank">here</a>.
Thanks so much for having me Lizzy!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-48710121360796689532014-05-09T17:09:00.000+08:002014-05-10T20:48:49.955+08:00The Five Most Memorable Pieces of Advice My Mother Gave Me <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
I'm joining in the <a href="http://www.janinehuldie.com/2014/05/dear-mom-happy-mothers-day/">Finish the Sentence Friday</a> today, where the sentence to finish is "<b>Dear Mom</b> ..." I'm going to have to take some poetic licence on that one though because if I wrote 'Mom' my mother would fear I had up and fled to the US of A overnight. So being Aussie, I'm going to have to make it 'Mum' :)</div>
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Dear Mum,<br />
<br />
This Mothers' Day, I want to thank you for all the advice you have given me over the years. We both know that most of it went in one ear and out the other, but I suppose we can both live in hope that it's all there rattling around in my subconscious and one day I will actually start putting it all to good use.<br />
<br />
You set such an amazing example of work ethic, organisation, thrift, routine and all-round domestic order. You always got up at the crack of dawn, ironed everything including underwear, without fail wrote down every cent you spent in a little book, never burnt the dinner or forgot an important date, never made lumpy mashed potato and never sunk into any of the domestic disasters that I did, like running out of toilet paper when there were guests in the house. Despite being a perfectionist, you always had a wonderful sense of humour and sometimes, even when you were being serious, you ended up being funny. You know I love you dearly, but if you need a reminder, please go and<b> <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/of-autumn-and-innocence.html">read this post again</a></b>. Today, my Mothers' Day message is not quite as sentimental, but just as special to me: it contains the five most memorable pieces of advice that you imparted to me. Now I did warn you that one day I would have to write these down and that they may even end up on the blog. I hope that reading them makes you smile as much as I did writing and remembering them ...<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Five Most Memorable Piece of Advice You Ever Gave Me </span></b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1. Always do the grocery shopping first thing in the morning as soon as the supermarket opens to avoid any hold-ups by bumping into anyone you know (but don't really like) and having to waste time chatting to said people.</b> This is very good advice indeed - except, of course, if all the people you want to avoid bumping into have the same idea!<br />
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<b>2. Wind up the hills hoist (</b><i>a height-adjustable Australian version of the clothesline</i><b>) as high as you can so that you have to stretch up to hang out the clothes - this will ensure you are regularly giving your abdominal muscles a workout. </b>Now if that isn't the ultimate in incidental exercise, then I don't know what is, but your abdominals were always quite impressive and I never saw you do a single sit-up, so you proved that it pays off!<br />
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<b>3. Keep a whistle by the phone to ward off prank callers. </b>In the days before caller ID, we received many a prank call and I have several fond memories of giggling with a mixture of shock and glee when my well- mannered, even-tempered Mother blew that whistle with all her might down the phone at the pranker before hanging up.<br />
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<b>4. Always put talcum powder into your bathing cap before going swimming - this stops the cap from ripping, stops bacteria from festering inside it and makes it easier to take it off your head afterwards, thus protecting your hair. </b>These were all very good reasons indeed to put talcum powder in my bathing cap before school swimming lessons. I think, however, that you may have over compensated a bit with the powder because I'm not so sure that you're supposed to put so much in that it leaves your hair ghostly white for the rest of the day. This would have been okay, I suppose, if we'd been allowed to shower after swimming lessons (which we weren't) or if all the other mothers insisted on putting talc in their child's caps too (which they didn't). I therefore spent a rather large proportion of my primary school days looking like a geriatric. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having white hair. I love your white hairs and I know that I'm responsible for most of them. But it's just hard to be cool at school when you're sporting that look.<br />
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And now for the cream of the crop ...<br />
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<b>5. Never scream when there is a cake in the oven as this will cause the cake to sink in the middle. </b>If I remember correctly, you explained that this had something to do with physics and<b> </b>you had me utterly convinced of this phenomenon for about twenty-five years, right up until I told a group of adult friends once to keep their voices down so the cake we were baking together wouldn't sink in the middle. When I told them how I knew this, they rolled around laughing. "You're mum just wanted some peace and quiet for half an hour!" they told me. "Oh", I replied, taking a while to process this. "Do you think that might be why she used to bake so often?!"<br />
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So Happy Mothers' Day, my funny, clever mum. I promise to make you a cake on Sunday ... as long as you can convince the grandkids to stay quiet while it bakes!<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://www.canigetanotherbottleofwhine.com/" target="_blank" title="Finish the Sentence Friday"><img alt="Finish the Sentence Friday" src="http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo325/zepplin305/BlogHopButton.jpg" style="border: none;" /></a></div>
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P.S I love you!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-28657892429916395162014-05-06T04:24:00.000+08:002014-05-08T15:19:26.822+08:00It's Official: Pregnancy Attracts Foot in Mouth Disease<br />
A friend of mine told me on the weekend that she and her husband had started trying to get pregnant with their first child.<br />
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"I'm not making that common knowledge though", she added, after I'd expressed my excitement.<br />
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"It's going to drive me insane if it takes a long time to get pregnant and people keep asking me<i> 'are you pregnant yet? Are you pregnant yet?' </i>"<br />
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Wise words, I would venture to say, since as I think you would agree, any pregnancy, or anticipated pregnancy, seems to attract a unwanted torrent of unsolicited remarks even from the most unlikely sources.<br />
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After this conversation with my friend, I reflected on some of the comments people had made to me during my two pregnancies. These aren't things that I think about often, but I can't honestly say that they didn't shock me a bit at the time. I've also heard quite a few friends tell me of ridiculous remarks people have made during their pregnancies too. So I've come to the conclusion that it's official: pregnancy attracts foot in mouth disease.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrAPgPM0tR880IPXCv9Q-KVS80bIXZAsypI7wLCQUjMSUL_-nS0y-lZyNAuHF57Edb8s5Rq-NpZrGGTtauhnzp3wv2crsx4ZkXu0VRkIXOY-OQf3UnVEEPEn2BD8zZBuMOLEtp9piPnZk/s1600/pregnacy+post.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrAPgPM0tR880IPXCv9Q-KVS80bIXZAsypI7wLCQUjMSUL_-nS0y-lZyNAuHF57Edb8s5Rq-NpZrGGTtauhnzp3wv2crsx4ZkXu0VRkIXOY-OQf3UnVEEPEn2BD8zZBuMOLEtp9piPnZk/s1600/pregnacy+post.jpg" height="436" width="640" /></a></div>
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With that in mind, I thought I'd share with you a smattering of some of the comments I received during my own pregnancies:<br />
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<b>These little gems came my way when I was pregnant with my son ...</b><br />
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* "Wow! You're big for 5 months!" (This one came from a girl I worked with at the time who was in her early twenties and had never given birth. I'm still unsure why she thought she was the authority on pregnancy)<br />
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* "Have you still got 10 weeks to go? I thought you must have been about to pop!"<br />
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* "It must be the pregnancy hormones that are making your skin so bad."<br />
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And I couldn't possibly forget these either ...<br />
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* When I was about ten weeks pregnant, I went into a dress shop to buy a ball gown to wear to a function run by my husband's work. I just wanted to browse and try some things on by myself, but the lady in the shop was very insistant that she wanted to help. So I gave in and described to her what I was looking for. "I don't want it to be too tight though", I told her, "because I'm pregnant". Her plastered smile instantly dropped off her face, she touched my arm and said "Oh my God". Looking back I can't actually believe I went ahead and bought a dress from that shop, but it wasn't a big city and there weren't many other options. I thought later that maybe she thought I'd come in to buy a dress for a school ball. Even so, I hope she has since changed career as customer service clearly was not her forte!<br />
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* I was a third year uni student at the time and one day when I was about seven months pregnant, I was walking across campus to get to a lecture. I passed by two girls who I had never seen before. As I walked past them one of them muttered, softly but quiet loud enough and clearly intended for me to hear: "slut". And no, I'm not joking (although I think this fits into the category of 'downright nasty', rather than foot in mouth).<br />
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<b>Here are the pearls of wisdom that came while I was pregant with my daughter 8 years later ...</b><br />
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* "I can't believe you're<i> </i>going back to the baby stage again after all that time!"<br />
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* "How come you waited so long to have number two?"<br />
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* "I didn't think you were going to have any more children". (I can't remember how I responded to this one, but I'm sure what I would like to have said would have been along the lines of "Really? And what exactly gave you that impression??")<br />
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* "You shouldn't be working if you're pregnant" (this one came from a reprobate adolescent who I used to teach - or at least tried to. I will forgive him though due to his tender age).<br />
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Oh, and just one more for good luck. During my last pregnancy, I saw many different doctors through the public health system and I only actually saw the doctor who ended up delivering my daughter for the first time while I was in the very final stages of labor. The next day she was doing her rounds of the ward and came to my room. Without so much as a smile, she asked how I was doing and then said "Was it a planned pregnancy?"<br />
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Needless to say, I was gobsmacked. I'm still mystified as to her motivation for asking me that. My partner was with me during the birth and my records showed that I already had another child. Plus, the baby was already born so I really did have to ask myself exactly how useful that question was on a scale of one to utterly useless!<br />
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Ah, but I suppose all these things prepare us for the onslaught of unwanted opinion that punctuates the rest of our journeys through motherhood: the debate between breast or bottle, co-sleeping or cot, private or public schools, the speculation over the right time to introduce solids and toilet training and all our choices regarding anything from dummies* to discipline to daycare.<br />
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Lucky kids are so darn cute, isn't it?<br />
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<a href="http://essentiallyjess.com/1775-2/ibot"><img src="http://essentiallyjess.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/ibotbutton.png" /></a>
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* that's pacifiers, for my American friends :)<br />
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<b>Did anyone say any rude or ridiculous things to you or someone you know during pregnancy? </b><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-63762423934272778142014-05-02T11:02:00.004+08:002014-05-05T10:23:17.534+08:00The Alphabet Weekends - G is for Good DeedsWe are well and truly overdue for an <a href="http://muddleheadedmamma.blogspot.com.au/p/the-alphabet-weekends.html">Alphabet Weekend</a><b> </b>update and to be honest, we are running quite behind on our Alphabet Weekend challenge (that was my New Year's Resolution to do 26 family activities throughout 2014, each starting with a consequetive letter of the alphabet). I've decided that I should forgive myself for that though considering that, among other things, we did move to a new house located over 300km away from our old house and what with everything that comes with a move like that, we were bound to have a bit of a hiccup in even our best laid plans!<br />
<br />
I had planned on taking Ben and his cousin<b> go-karting</b> for our G weekend. We were all set to jump in the car and head off, but I thought I'd just ring the venue to make sure they could fit us in first. The lady on the phone said they had plenty of room, but were each of the participants at least 145cm tall? I didn't actually know what Ben's current height was so what ensued was a rather dramatic scene in which he, his cousin and I all ran around the house hunting for a tape measure or a ruler with the baby hot on our heels, but to no avail. I then sent Ben next door to ask the neighbours if he could borrow their tape measure (and told the go-carting lady I would call her back). He came back looking very solemn indeed and mumbled "I'm only 141cm".<br />
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It took some persuading to convince him that there would be no possible way to trick anybody that he was 4cm taller than he actually is (he did mention the possibility of high heels and spiky hair, bless him). So the go-karting did not happen, but I have decided that I can definitely make this situation work in my favour. For instance, I will now be able to say things like:<br />
<br />
"Eat up all your vegetables or you won't grow tall enough to go go-karting!" and<br />
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"You'd better go to bed early from now on because people don't grow properly if they don't sleep enough!"<br />
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I did take Ben and his cousin for an outting on the train to the city that day instead and we did do lots of fun things, but none of them started with G (unless you count <b>galavanting</b>, <b>gawking </b>and <b>giggling).</b><br />
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So after our false start we went back to the drawing board and decided that for G we would do some <span style="font-size: large;">good deeds. </span><br />
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We put our heads together and thought of four good deeds that we could do around our neighbourhood.<br />
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This is what we came up with:<br />
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First, we went for a walk around the block with a plastic bag each and<b> picked up the rubbish that we saw along the way ...</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhUYWuZHq4CNzEdEVv0aMjW10azymGgrYYJVKOzQE6waPbbjeO0PHr0OESGGP4NMh750jI_6YjEmy_OTYIgrN4D_46rSS9ZR9Eh7BZoJ2-WVBNDAhxbPttfKIfPt7U1Y2GUQBH3sjJaH8/s1600/good+deed+1collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhUYWuZHq4CNzEdEVv0aMjW10azymGgrYYJVKOzQE6waPbbjeO0PHr0OESGGP4NMh750jI_6YjEmy_OTYIgrN4D_46rSS9ZR9Eh7BZoJ2-WVBNDAhxbPttfKIfPt7U1Y2GUQBH3sjJaH8/s1600/good+deed+1collage.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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The funny thing is that I've done that walk at least two dozen times before and had never really noticed how much rubbish is strewn around the streets. Both our bags were full before we'd even been walking for ten minutes. Oh, and I promise I did some rubbish collecting too, there's just no photographic evidence to prove it!<br />
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Along the way we saw an<b> adondoned shopping trolley</b>, so we walked it back to the supermarket ...<br />
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(and when I say we, this time I mean Ben).<br />
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When we got to the supermarket, we bought<b> a<i> Thank You</i> card</b> and went home and wrote a message to a friend of mine whose house we had stayed at for a few nights during the school holidays ...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqjgUmVgEhkaPNQCiCnlHbSoB-NbEvf6S6A3lsFmeUJk3zfIipHNu9NQiLMGIpoaoNTSCeMewNZQmPO3IJhAFfsRWyWvDG8fK8-736642AuVbMNcpHx_AxNcXgC1t_C97hBsyKnNGL5a4/s1600/good+deed+collage+card.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqjgUmVgEhkaPNQCiCnlHbSoB-NbEvf6S6A3lsFmeUJk3zfIipHNu9NQiLMGIpoaoNTSCeMewNZQmPO3IJhAFfsRWyWvDG8fK8-736642AuVbMNcpHx_AxNcXgC1t_C97hBsyKnNGL5a4/s1600/good+deed+collage+card.jpg" height="326" width="640" /></a></div>
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And lastly, we went through our wardrobes and found all the clothes and shoes we don't wear anymore and put them in a big bag ....<br />
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Then we walked back up to the shops, posted the card and<b> dropped the clothes off at the donation bin</b>.<br />
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And after that, I was so tired from all the walking that I put my feet up and Ben made me a cup of tea (one extra good deed for him and one very nice treat for me :)<br />
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So there it is - our G weekend.Please tell me that late is better than never!<br />
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<b>Now you wouldn't happen to have any suggestions about what we could do for H, have you??</b><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04750195813761527673noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5979455372896973331.post-66704274485270762102014-04-08T04:56:00.001+08:002014-09-11T22:03:23.124+08:00The Bikini Bridge - and the beauty of hindsight <br />
Perhaps you've heard about it already.<br />
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It's the latest in <i>thinspiration</i>, the younger sister of the 'thigh gap' and the current measuring stick - in the eyes of countless susceptibility young women - for beauty.<br />
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They call it the <i>bikini bridge.</i> A girl who has one is a girl who, when lying on her back in a bikini, has a gap between her hipbones and her stomach. The 'bridge' is the material of her bikini bottoms that stretches over that gap between her hipbones. All over social media, young girls have sent in their selfies of their bridges in their droves. It seems that everyone who has one wants the whole world to know about it.<br />
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<b>But where does that leave everyone else who doesn't? </b>With just one more reason to hate their body and feel horrendously uncomfortable in their own skin?<br />
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There are literally thousands of photos of bikini bridges on the web, many of them purporting messages such as these:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkP7Wmo8KjKJs7LYt4x_WSODApkrZqDqTjushO-vNEvq922JiwnRjgfIVe1pswVZTS5GfEMaMwV36buOCpdvlji2-iVuTrWJnK2jCq14isSHDTmsehQkFO86vOoyKhclGzQyHKdqh3gY/s1600/bikinibridge2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhkP7Wmo8KjKJs7LYt4x_WSODApkrZqDqTjushO-vNEvq922JiwnRjgfIVe1pswVZTS5GfEMaMwV36buOCpdvlji2-iVuTrWJnK2jCq14isSHDTmsehQkFO86vOoyKhclGzQyHKdqh3gY/s1600/bikinibridge2.jpeg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
image <a href="https://twitter.com/BikiniBridgeEC">source</a><br />
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image <a href="http://9gag.com/gag/a4465Zd/-bikini-bridge">source</a><br />
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<img src="http://www.itusozluk.com/image/bikini-bridge_544496.jpg" /><br />
image <a href="http://www.itusozluk.com/gorseller/bikini+bridge/544496">source</a><br />
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image <a href="http://weheartit.com/entry/group/36175604">source</a><br />
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I first read about this trend in an online article at the beginning of summer. I expected the feminist in me to feel outraged by it. But I surprised myself. What I actually felt was a profound sense of sadness.<br />
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I did not feel sad because the article impacted in any way on my own self esteem. What I felt was an aching despondency for the fact that such a huge number of young women were allowing themselves to be objectified in this way and feeling beautiful because of it. Not even realising how they were being used.<br />
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Young women just like the teenagers I used to teach.<br />
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Young women just like my nieces will be in just a few years' time.<br />
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Young women just like my own little girl will be one day too.<br />
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No matter how hard to try to protect her, this is the reality of the world she will grown up in: she may grow be the smartest of all the girls she knows, or the funniest, the most talented, the most capable or the kindest, but all anyone will seem to want to know about is what she looks like in a bikini.<br />
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And then I realised, with that mixture of regret and sagacity that can only come via error and hindsight, that not so very long ago in the scheme of things, I too was one of those naive, susceptible girls, horrendously uncomfortable in my own body for no good reason, except the fact that I had no understanding back then of the difference between what is truly beautiful and what is, tragically, actually the objectification of women. If I were a teenager now, would I be one of those girls sending in their bikini bridge selfie to Instagram or to Facebook? I would like to think not, but I honestly cannot say. I do know that my teenage self would have believed that having that coveted bikini bridge might have meant that someone would actually notice me and admire me and possible even love me. How many years of my life did I waste feeling miserable and inadequate when all along happiness was so close, waiting patiently for me to befriend it, and all I had to do was say yes?<br />
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But I packed these thoughts up and buried them. I had no time for regretting the past or fretting for the future; the present was so intense that it consumed my every moment. I didn't think of the bikini bridge trend at all for weeks. Then a few days ago, I was sitting on a bus, my daughter asleep in my lap, and I overheard a conversation between two young girls seated behind me. One was showing the other photos she has taken of herself showing off her 'bridge'. The other was complimenting her, saying how lucky she was to be so skinny, while simultaneously putting her own self down, saying she'd never be able to have a 'bridge' because she was too fat.<br />
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How I would have loved to have turned around to these young girls and gently told them my own thoughts on the topic. But would they have listened to me? Of course not. Would I have listened myself at their age?<br />
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So I stayed staring out the window and as the bus drove on, I thought about what I would have loved to have said to them - what I would give anything to go back and be able to say to my own self - if only they, and I, would have listened. I would have said something like this ...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>Dear teenage girls, dear teenage Me,</i> </span><br />
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<b><i>If you really want to be happy, you must reassess what you believe to be meaning of beauty.</i></b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Beauty has nothing to do with the gap between your hipbones or your thighs, or the number of lines on your face. Beauty is not something you starve yourself to achieve. It is not something you can purchase. It is not something tangible that can be weighed and measured. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Beauty is not about constantly striving to outdo other women or objectifying yourself to satisfy men.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Striving and objectifying are not beautiful.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">So what is beautiful?</span> you ask.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><i>Patience is beautiful.</i></b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The patience of a mother who moves at the pace of her child, not at her own. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The patience of a lover who waits faithfully when their love is far away. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The patience of a mother whose heart has been broken by the cruel words and rebellion of her teenaged child who waits, all the time loving constantly, for those years to pass and the love of their child to return. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The patience of a spouse who has watched their love grow away from them throughout the years but who waits, with a hopeful and forgiving heart, for their beloved to remember the reasons for their love and to turn their heart back to them. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Confidence is beautiful</b>.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Not the confidence that comes as a result of make-up or expensive clothes or being thin enough to feel accepted into an exclusive tribe, but the confidence that comes through inner peace and satisfaction; the confidence that comes from a place of self acceptance.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><i>Contentment is beautiful.</i></b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A women who constantly strives to outdo others and is never satisfied with her achievements, her body or her face is not a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman is a woman whose soul has stopped striving and is at rest; in her presence you do not feel scrutinised, measured or assessed. You can relax when she is with you. She is not selfish with her beauty. Her beauty make those around her beautiful too.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b><i>Courage is beautiful.</i></b><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The courage to say yes when everyone else is saying no, and the courage to say no when everyone else is saying yes.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The courage to walk away from all the people around you who call you friend, or lover, because you know that their friendship or their love does not make you happy and does not allow you to be the person you were born to be. And yes, because of your courage, you will be lonely, but that loneliness will pass. I promise you that it will pass.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>And I also promise you this: unless you walk away from those who drag you down, who try to change you and turn you into what they need you to be to satisfy their own desires or to lessen the pain of their own insecurities, you will never have the chance to go out and find your own tribe - the ones who were meant, all along, to call you friend, or lover. The ones who want you to succeed; who celebrate your talents. The ones who can help you ignite that fire inside of you.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>They are there. Believe me, they are there. But they are not going to come knocking on the door to rescue you. First you need to be brave enough to step away from what is not right for you, no matter how comfortable and comforting your zone of security has become.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>That means not everyone is going to like you. That means some people are even going to hate you. But open your eyes: people already dislike you. No matter what you do, there will always be people who dislike you. That thing you fear most? Let it go. It has already happened.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">But how do I find these things?</span> you ask</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Find your bliss</b>. Your bliss is what you do without counting the minutes while you are doing it. Your bliss is what you would choose to do, over and over again without getting paid, rather than sleep. It took me thirty years to find the courage to start following my bliss, but I always knew what my bliss was going to be since I was a little girl. Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been had I had the courage to follow it earlier. I have a feeling that most people know in the back of their minds what their own bliss will be, but few actually ever dare to talk about it, for fear of being ridiculed.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Do not underestimate the power of music. </b>Music has to ability not only to lift your spirits, but to heal you on a subconscious level too. You are never too old to gain pleasure from playing an instrument.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Leave your comfort zone.</b> Travel. It could be to the other side of the world, but it doesn't have to be. It could be travelling to the other side of the city to do voluntary work with people from a different background or demographic from your own. When you re-enter your comfort zone again, you will see things from a different perspective.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><b>Listen to old people. </b>They have a lifetime of stories, wisdom and hindsight to share. Savour their wisdom. Learn whatever you can from their hindsight. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><span style="font-size: x-large;">But why should I bother?</span> you ask</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>To understand that, you need to understand the bigger picture. You need to understand that the media wants you to hate yourself. In fact, they need you to hate yourself. When you hate yourself, you are weak and vulnerable. It is easier to sell things to you when you are weak and vulnerable, when your self esteem is rock bottom. Diet pills, diet shakes, diet plans, exercise machines, tanning lotions, anti-aging potions, the perfect make-up, the perfect tummy-tucking underwear - the list is endless. As long as they can keep you hating yourself, they can keep bringing out new products to improve the way you look and you just keep buying them. An inexhaustible market. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You need to remember how hard women have fought to ensure that the generations of women who came after them would be given the same rights as their male counterparts. Not so very long ago, suffragettes starved themselves in prison so that someone might actually start paying serious attention to their cause. If you are going to starve yourself. do not do it to make yourself look sexually appealing for the male population. If nothing else, I think we owe that to the women whose suffering pathed the way for the rights we now seem to take so easily for granted. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You know in your heart that what you really want is a fulfilling and lasting relationship with a man you can trust and who can respect you. You do not want a man who is distracted or tempted by the bodies of other women or by the lure of pornography. To find a man who will respect you with his body and his mind, you need to first respect yourself. You are not a piece of meat to be masturbated over. Throw away the photo of your bikini bridge or your ambition to have one. You do not need thousands of men masturbating over you. You are worth far more than that.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>You are a unique, extraordinary and powerful human being. No one other person in the world has or has had or will ever have exactly the same DNA or finger prints or tooth formation as you do. No one person has ever had an identical set of experiences or thought every thought that you have ever thought. There is a purpose in this life for you to pursue that you alone can fulfill. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>And lastly, remember this: <span style="font-size: large;">You are enough</span>. <span style="font-size: large;">You have always been enough</span>. But you will only start to feel it when you start to think it. Your thoughts are the most powerful thing you have. Shift them, if they need shifting. Destroy them, if they need destroying and then rebuild them into something mighty and radiant. Let your thoughts radiate the beauty that has always been inside you.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>You are as beautiful as you think you are.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span>
This will always be my favourite photo of me in a bikini. I will never feel more beautiful than I did that day.<br />
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<i><b><br /></b></i>
<i><b><br /></b></i>
<b>So what are your thoughts on the bikini bridge?</b><br />
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