What’s Hot + What’s Not this week

Two weeks ago I did a personal What’s Hot and What’s Not. It was fun and I think I might try it every Wednesday or so. Join me if you like. A few folks did last time and it was fun to click around to get a little snapshot-glimpse into lives around the world. Leave me a comment if you do so I can come and visit.

HOT

Sitting by the fire in the evening – whether it’s to watch 30Rock, roast marshmallows or to read Harry Potter out loud to a gathered, enthused crowd. I look forward to our nights by the open fire all day.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. I finished Chris Tsiolkas’ The Slap and went into Yass to find something else to fill the void. I found A Fraction of the Whole and am devouring it. It’s great. I also found a nice bookshop – The Little Dog Bookshop – 155 Comur Street, Yass. It’s Carbon Neutral! How about that.

Whittaker’s coconut chocolate – we have been having two little pieces of this deliciousness every evening after the children go to bed. I had some Rum and Raisin last night but far prefer the coconut. There are 24 different varieties in block form and it seems like one of the nearby supermarkets stocks quite a few of those. Mum is keen to try Kiwifruit just for the bizarreness factor.

The Quilt Project viewing at the Abbotsford Convent – October 23rd! Can’t wait to see it. Kirsty’s pretty darn cool.

Open Studios Event from Studio Magazine: “Crafters and artists around the world are invited to participate in this global open studios event – deadline for participation is Friday, October 2. Door Prizes available.” I can’t take part because I am here and a million miles away from my studio but this looks like fun. (thanks Kylie for the tip-off)

NOT Hot

Writing paralysis – I have gotten up a couple of mornings to write while we’ve been here. I huddle under a smelly old rug covered in dog hair in the sitting room, imagining (and only imagining) that the coals from the last night’s fire are warming the room. Unfortunately the writing has been nothing but stilted and silly. I’m not sure why. Usually I find this place is a kind of creative hot-spot. Right before a fierce thunderstorm here in 2004, when the air was crackling with creative electricity and inspiration, I came up with the sketches for my favourite pictures ever which went on to be the body of the work for an exhibition. I know two years ago I was having an awful shower in the awfullest shower in NSW (which is now happily fixed) and as it swung from searing hot to piercingly cold every two minutes as the pump kicked in and out, I had the idea for my novel about the girl moving home to the country and blah blah blah (the one I have been working on but is momentarily on hold). I guess it’s a case of taking your brain out of your every day commitments and routines and let it go into a vacuum for a while. But not so this time. You know? I think I blame The Slap. It totally occupied all my mind and imagination while I was reading it.  It was worth it though.

‘Tis the season for swooping magpies. Maybe all those owl signs Phil saw the other day were actually the angry eyes of the kamikaze magpies which have started up around here.

A full meat diet. The butcher near here is so good. Great sausages, delicious chops and steaks and roasts… it’s an easy way to cook up here, as the kitchen is a little prehistoric and the bbq is often so much easier. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tasty – but I am starting to feel *ridiculously* full all the time. It’s enough to make me turn vegetarian on our return to Melbourne. Hilariously, as I typed this Mum asked “who wants bacon for breakfast? There’s a lot here! We can have bacon… with um… bacon!”. It’s a good thing I forgot to take photos of several of the dinners up here, because it would have been downright embarrassing to record the full-meat diet for all to see.

Daisy daisy

Hello from the NSW South West Slopes

Firstly, I have to tell you that the chicken schnitzel with gravy at the Golf Club on Saturday night was absolutely delicious. Hopefully we will be going back there again sometime this holiday – and maybe this time we’ll win a meat tray!

Another thing you will need to know if you ever come visiting this way, is that there are a lot of daisies in the garden  - bring yellow shoes to disguise the pollen stains.

Today we discovered that getting a three year old to walk all the way home from a long hike up the road is easy with a little forward planning. My mum quietly set up a series of little stone cairns every 50 metres or so up the road on the way to Totoro’s Forest (as that is where we were going – I bet you didn’t know that Totoro’s Forest is on the South West Slopes of NSW). On the way home the challenge was to find each cairn and place a big stone on the pile. Lily was intrigued. There was hardly a grizzle.

Fascinatingly, my Dad is becoming a Birder. He has spotted 100 different bird species and entered them into his database. Today he spotted his 101st – the Red Capped Firetail. Amelia has started a list too. She has a new shiny red plastic pair of binoculars for her birthday and her plan is to out-spot Phoebe Snetsinger, the woman who managed to see 8400 birds by the time of her death.

In other news, when not walking, filling a shopping trolley with huge amounts of food to cook for a hungry holiday household, cooking, looking for birds or wrangling children, I am reading The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas… and loving it. I have been wanting to read it for the longest time and have finally caved and bought myself a copy as the waiting list at the library was enormous. I have heard such mixed reviews but his characterisations are brilliant. I know it won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but he makes me want to write more honestly and not shy away from uncomfortable, human truths.

So that’s me for today. How are you?

What’s Hot + What’s Not on a Wednesday

I used to love those columns in trashy magazines where they would tell you what was hot and what was not. With a glance you could see that parachute pants were out and bubble skirts were in. Do they still do these? I am going to do my own. Maybe you might make a hot and not list. Link back to me if you do so I can come and see.

Here’s mine for 16th September 2009:

What’s Hot

Banana Milkshakes (above) – Banana, honey, milk. Easy. Kids love it.

Kylie Kwong’s Mum’s Hokkien Noodles: – I’ve made this twice now, with slight additions of extra veg or substitute veg. It’s easy and delicious. Amelia gobbles it down. Lily doesn’t. But then again, all she eats is bread (and banana milkshakes) so it’s not surprising.

T2 Red Rooibos Tea: A while back I heard an interview with Alexander McCall Smith on the radio where he was discussing his Number One Ladies Detective Agency books in which the main character Mma Precious Ramotswe consumes large amounts of rooibos tea. Both he and the interviewer (Margaret Throsby? Probably) raved about how delicious rooibos is. Up until then I had only tried some disgusting, dishwater version found in some supermarket teabags and realised more research was needed. I bought a small box of T2s red roobios and am now hooked and drink at least two cups a day. Caffeine free, low tannin levels, full of antioxidants it’s delicious and good and It’s great before bed.

Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pens: I use a lot of those for my drawing. My favourites are the black ones (S, F and Brush nibs) but I have them in lots of different colours.

Amy-Angry Chicken’s Apple Cider Vinegar wart cure. It works. ‘Nuff said.

Byron Bay – Counting down the days until Phil and I and a couple of good mates head for the tropics for 4 nights. Can.not.wait.

What’s Not

Warts, clearly.

My Mum standing on a step ladder to hack a branch off a tree, falling and breaking a rib. Very not hot.

Tiny little video cameras (Flip Ultra HD in this case) which should be cool, except they don’t seem to include the feature of some kind of stabilization control. Shakey!

Losing my holiday packing list file somewhere on my hard drive *again*. I seem to not be able to find the last one I created every single time we are packing to go away and have to start writing out items from scratch. Fortunately I had this photo on loobylu from last year and I could peer at it and copy some of it out again.

Headaches, end-of-term-tired children, big credit card bills, hurty shoes, whiney blog posts.

Ketchup

My week in pictures. There were wild winds and sick kids.

Aah Friday… In exactly two minutes I am picking up the phone and ordering Mushroom Mutter, naan bread and some kind of crazy deep fried chicken (pakora?). I will also be encouraging the girls to turn off the tv and will be switching on the radio to listen to Classic Drive with Julia Lester because I like Julia and her music programmer. Tonight I am ducking around the corner for some classy drinks with the girls and then tomorrow I am leaping up to go to the market to buy my usuals (celeriac? feta? cos lettuce hearts? these things seem to make it into my bag every week).

this weekend I am also going to be

- making chicken pie for friends
- visiting the flea market
- painting some window frames
- trying not to think about gorgeous mid century furniture I spied with Kirsty in Fitzroy today
- pulling up weeds
- picking up a copy of Jane Eyre
- putting together a costume for a school performance
- starting a design for an embroidered cushion for Amelia’s birthday
- pulling out that old prickly pear pattern and making it into something that others might like to buy (hello 2005!)
- taking the girls to Ponyo
- and some more!

What are you up?

Listing

Here’s our list of things that we need to do around the house. A fair bit of painting as you can see.

Look how I spelt bitumen! The weird thing is, I know how to spell bitumen, but my brain was obviously feeling a little subconciously cranky.

I think if we do all these things I will be mighty impressed and possibly go and find a new career producing a show on the lifestyle channel. More likely we will do some weeding and then find the need to check twitter 6 times a minute for weeks on end.

- – - – - 

Day five: How are you going? I was up at 5.30 and pumped out 700 words. Played with that scene I started yesterday and had so much fun. Then I got into the shower and thought some more about it realised that I am still listing towards the clichéd obvious so asked “what else could happen here?” and came up with a far better, funny even, outcome. I wrote while Lily had a rare nap this afternoon so my day’s word total (so far) is 1439.

Monday morning

We had such a perfect, gentle weekend. It’s always hard waking on a Monday and feeling that wrench as the realisation of the upcoming rush-to-get-out-the door kicks in. This morning we woke late and got to school just before the second bell but we somehow managed to keep things cheerful.

This is the list on the door inside one of the kitchen cupboards which Amelia refers to almost every day when getting ready and packing her bag for school. She kicks around all morning; drawing, playing the piano, constructing elaborate plans for tree houses or performances, gazing into the plastic container where her pill bugs live, slowly getting dressed in unbelievably drawn-out stages while all the time chat chat chatting. Thankfully, when we hit the urgent, last minute race to get away, there is this list for making life easier. As Meg (who is an old friend and author of my new favourite blog) wrote, the world can be divided into those who keep lists, and those who don’t. Amelia has most definitely inherited my keen love of all things list-like.

* * *

Speaking of kids – Mixtape – The Kids Issue is now available for preorder at the Mixtape online shop. I did the cover illustration and if the content is at all like that of the previous issues, it will be a rad read.

Things I am doing

Today involves:
Packing for the school holidays
Buying champagne for my bestie’s baby shower
Ordering cakes for my bestie’s baby shower
Starting an illustration for some nice girls
Attending a “linen party”
Returning library books
Entertaining sick children
Grocery shopping
Thinking about zombies (well, I am)
Filling in forms for the Child Care Rebate
Sorting out an invoice with a doctor
Laundry
Dinner (chicken and basil and cashews? Mmm yes)

Other things I would like to be doing:
Watching Project Runway (both US and Aussie versions)
Crochet
Eating King Island Dairy vanilla yoghurt
Starting secret project for my bestie’s baby
Listening to some music
A proper blog post
Reading a book (rockin’)
Checking out my enormous list of favourite blogs
Pre-ordering Moomin book three

Feb was No Spend Month

Rosa‘s nice ribbon.

This was one of the few luxury purchases I made in February while undergoing “No Spend Month“.

Other things which forced me to break the rules included:

• Brown Owls Membership
• Coffee (or hot chocolate) and cakes at Laurent for Mum, Dad, Amelia, Lily and Me one Saturday morning (Mum spotted us for all other Saturday mornings in Feb. Thanks Mum! That was a bit naughty of me really.)
• Sweeney Todd at the Rivoli
• DVD rentals (Die Hard 4, The Bourne Ultimatum and Once)
• An apple tart to take to a dinner party on a weekend when I had no time to cook.

Things I held back on even though it made me miserable:

• Green and Black’s White Chocolate
• Fabric (even with a visit to Patchwork on Central Park)
• New shoes to replace my completely trashed campers

Things I thought I would miss but strangely had no effect on me:

• Life etc. and various other nice magazines
• Books from Dymocks
• Take away food
• Chai tea at Macro
• Clothes on sale

Things that surprised me:

• We reduced the amount of rubbish we put out for collection by half for the month!
• Amelia stopped asking “Can I have (insert toy/video game/treat/donut/etc.)?” all the time. She doesn’t do it at all anymore.
• I got a little boring and evangelical about it (actually, perhaps that’s not so surprising).
• I really do feel compelled to buy less.

No spend month was quite good. It kind of reset my “Need to buy, must consume” button, but I do have a renewed respect for those who do the Compact challenge. I have already got back in to the swing of purchasing a few things that really I shouldn’t have… but ya gotta live a little… right?