Squibblog

little red bursts of home grown goodness

I'm not a huge fan of the hanging basket, except when it's hanging outside an English pub. But I have installed a row along our front verandah because it faces directly north and I wanted to grow strawberries away from snails. This is my first venture down the home grown strawberry path but it's set to become an annual ritual. These berries are the most delicious thing any of us have ever eaten. Just a pity they only come ripe 2 or 3 at a time which means we fight over who gets to savour the super strawberry goodness.

four fifty two

No day starts well when you wake and the clock display has a four as the first number. Why we couldn't just start daylight's saving at the end of September beats me. Let the curtains fade, I have little tolerance for entertaining my children between 4.52am and 8.38am when we leave for school.

They have little tolerance for growls of 'it's the middle of the night' when the sun is clearly getting up.

I am a physical wreck today because Soy is in Vietnam on a junket, so 4.52 was my cross to bear alone.

One good thing I discovered, while sipping my super strong flat white and flipping through the election coverage, is that ABC kids has a new show in the 8am time-slot. The wonderful Umbilical Brothers now have The Upside Down Show. It's so funny that I laughed a lot more than the kids. Actually I just spent 10 minutes on the website which has lots of lovely little videos. Go, laugh, marvel, be entertained until 7.15 when I'm ready to get up.

Time for sloth and mind numbing televisual entertainment.

beer and pizza

We have made it through our third stretch of school holidays. This time we let the kids wreak havoc with our work schedules because we thought giving Zac a rest was more important than income. We've spent a lot of time at home: resting, watching TV, playing games, drawing and building Lego space ships. When I write it like that it sounds idyllic but in fact it has been a mixed bag.

Some days we've been like the little Play School family, happily creating crafts together. Other days we all got on each others nerves, Soy and I have been checking emails and writing bits of copy in between buttering the 400th cruskit for the day and then we've had to stay up late working. Til midnight quite often last week.

It's no surprise really that I woke up yesterday with a migraine.

Still, I think a week of rest and a week of circus school (mornings only) with slow afternoons was pretty much the best recipe for Zac. His health and general demeanour have improved greatly. Even though it makes my work life a little dicey, if it means Zac gets a good start to the next school term, it's worth it, exhausting as it has been.

Tonight I plan to sit dazed in front of the television, drinking beer and eating pizza. And on Monday I will revel in an empty house and be able to work in peace.

nature's child

Nell has a love of living creatures. Her first word was 'dog' and she will approach any creature with four or more legs and assume it is her friend. She has never really been afraid of animals, reptiles or insects. At her daycare her favourite spot is at the insect table, making up games for the praying mantis' kids playing with the butterfly kids.

She has never been squeamish about touching animals or insects either. The other day I picked her up from day care and she told me she had a worm in her hand. I assumed this was a playdough or imaginary worm but when we got home I was a little dismayed to find an earthworm clutched in her fist. It took a lot of persuading to get her to set it free in the garden bed.

I wondered how many children would endure having a worm squirming in their hand for half an hour. Zac certainly would not. But Nell loves nothing more than having a beetle or an ant crawling on her.

So it is no surprise that right now,while Zac and Soy sleep,  Nell is wandering around the house with her latest 'pet' held gently in her hand. It's a moth, the big brown Bogong kind, that she has named Petal. It's wild fluttering and determined crawling hold no fear for her as she lets it wander over her and around her room.

I just hope she draws the line at spiders.

a post of shameless plugs

Tonight we go to the launch of a new magazine called 'Go'. It's a technology lifestyle publication and Soy and I are the editors. The website is not yet up but if you're passing by a Telstra shop, they are being given away free!

Editing a magazine has been an elightening experience. Sometimes a little troubled, sometimes a bit frustrating but now it's done. What does magazine editing have in common with being a lawyer? You'd be surprised. There's a lot more client management in running a magazine than I'd imagined, and there's a lot more writing and editing in being a lawyer than I had previously recognised.

Spending three entire days trawling model websites looking for a cover model, however, is something I had not really anticipated. It's a lot less glamorous than it sounds.

More shameless plugging, but this time for a product I like rather than myself. Blurb has just brought down its shipping rates to Australia, making their photo books the cheapest and best quality available in Australia at the moment. I've made two books now and if you take account of the cost of printing photos and buying an album, it's cheaper to get a coffee table book printed than it is to go the old fashioned album. And you get the flexibility of different photo sizes and printed captions so the finished product is far superior.

When I printed up my first book it cost US$35 for the book and US$65 (!!!!) for the shipping. Still, it ended up being cheaper than getting it done in Australia. Plus none of the Australian sites could print books over 40 pages, Blurb can do up to 440.

Now that the shipping is a much more reasonable 7,90 Euros, I'll be making a lot more Blurb books. I'm even planning a print run of the blog so I can keep it for posterity!