Wow. So much for a graceful farewell and redirect with panache.
I linked to a blog in Swedish.
SO skilled.
This is why I need a whole new blog. So I don't corrupt this one with baby (lack-of-)brain.
Now that I've scared off anyone silly enough to be subscribed to THIS blog after my inertia, I'm over here. Come hang out. It's still a bit lonely... Just me, her, him, the pug and a relationship with my washing machine that's just been taken to an exciting new level. 

Goodbye...hello

So things have moved on. A lot. To the extent that I thought about resuming my blog over here but decided it needed a new title to fit the new focus. Which is small. And wears a lot of pink. Her name's Audrey Fay, and we're settling into this thing called parenthood with surprising ease, if not a love for middle-of-the-night feeds. The new blog is, like her, rather small, but if you can cope with mommyblogging and the occasional snark, come on over.

absolut snark

Welcome to The Bay at Mordialloc, where the women without husbands wear Botoxed lips and eyes instead of wedding bling. I idly wonder if they hocked it to pay for their all-in-one cosmetic pilgrimage to Thailand. Tummy Tucker jeans versus Bardot jeans not cut for anyone post-childbirth or thirty. They chew gum and eye the tradies, the bar staff, the lead singer, my husband. Anything male and pulsing.

I estimate that in another twenty minutes (or however soon another glass of chardonnay can decently be necked) they'll be up step-tapping and moshing their bleached split ends in time to the bass.

But wait! Three peacocks, hopefully on break from a wedding (you know, that awkward pause between ceremony and reception where guests wish they'd brought a book and the bridal party dash madly between four locations) arrive.

On-trend cobalt with heinous faux tan, on-trend coral with divine Grecian cleavage-bisecting braided silver straps, and the season's must-have, a maxi that has been gracefully hoiked up five times in four minutes over a too-tight strapless bra cowering beneath an onslaught of orange breasts. There may also have been fascinators. I choose to label it car-crash couture.

Let's not talk about their three boys who roll in wearing real-estate suits and earrings, not a shirt cuff to be seen between them. Who to blame for this surfeit of colortexturestyle? Is it the sartorial manifestation of the instant gratification generation, everything now at once in one dress? I think I prefer the Tummy Tucker jeans.

Spotlight, how do you do this to me?

Does Spotlight fill you too with delusions of competence and domestic sewn-from-scratch perfection? I'm here to tell you only masochists make their own napkins.

Only morons see some BEAUTIFUL scarlet fabric with white scrolls and birds and curlicues and think "WOW, that would make stunning Christmas napkins. I could totally make them."
Hemming (a.k.a sewing in straight lines, in this instance) is very easy. It's more the cutting in straight lines which is a hassle. And the ironing. Oh yes, the ironing. The pressing of 100% cotton homespun into creases OTHER than the ones formed by the fabric bolt. Maybe it's just the tedium killing me.

Oh yes, killing.
I've hemmed and pressed and folded one.
Of twelve.

Admittedly, the other eleven are cut and stacked beside the machine, and the iron is now hot, so I've come further down the tunnel than I'm protesting.  I've hemmed the tablecloth (just call me Martha Stewart)

I have a distinct feeling the boy will be on loose-thread-trimming and pressing duty when he comes home. If he comes home. Meanwhile, on with the Tripod marathon and the cheery festive hemming. Frick.

Trying to be grownups

me: Where did all the Picnics go?

him: I was... picnicking. Do you like Turkish Delights? Here, you use the white ones as counters. (Tossing them at Jack) Who likes caramel? Do you like caramel? Do you like the Boost ones? (This may be a box of Cadbury Favorites, it's hard to be sure. You'll note all the really GOOD ones are long gone.)

me: Um, I don't not like them.

him: Good, you take the Turkish Delights and the Boost, I'll..

me: Do we REALLY have to divvy them all up right now? Can you not just leave them in a mixed group so we can eat them like ADULTS?

Jack: I really love these balls.

(Worth noting that a box of Lindt is also on the table. It's happy-happy Christmas time, aka end-of-teaching-year aka welcome to the crazy who is my husband on a sugar high from pilfering fridge goodies. Love it.)

revamp? too much work.

Post-ballet concert, I’m firmly embracing the pyjama-dressing trend. I did have thoughts of morphing into a fashion-inspiration-look at me blog, but I’ve decided

(a) I’m too lazy

(b) I have no decent backdrops to take such photos against, except for my new, minimalist roller blinds which have couches in front of them and there’s NO WAY I’m moving them just to take a photo of myself looking (i) uncoordinated (ii)out of focus,

(c) I HATE most photos of myself

(d) don’t I already have enough to do?

(e) I’m lazy. As you may have noticed from my month of blog-neglect.

Besides, you don’t really want to look at photos of me in my pyjamas. That’s what the Peter Alexander catalogue is for (and as if I could ever compete with THAT?!). It goes like this: silk blouson pants, country road tee. Painted cotton harem pants and singlet top. Stretch waistbands and floaty cotton all the way. Flat shoes only, and if they can be easily kicked off, all the better. 

I’m starting to think that the world might be a happier place if we all got our snuggle on and saved the stilettos for occasions already softened by alcohol. I’m already feeling that I can get from working-state to relaxed-state with much more ease. This has NOTHING to do with concerts being over and a six-week break so close I can almost taste it. Hm. How do you get your snuggle on?

Oops.

There’s been a lot going on that hasn’t really been mine to write about; then there’s been a lot going on that’s been so incredibly deadly boring that living it is soporific, let alone reading about it. Take today.

Today I learned that forgetting to run a load of washing for two? maybe three? weeks is a crappy idea. I also learned I have a propensity for scribbling random information (crucial stuff, mind you) on random bits of paper, then confusing those bits of paper with the bits that should have been thrown out weeks ago.  That’s not to say that I threw out the important bits instead, just that I have a house littered with pieces of irrelevant and relevant notes that need collating, sorting, and filing. In the bin.

My ‘housekeeping’ was going brilliantly this morning, until I ferried a miscellaneous pile of cello strings downstairs and squelched across the floor. Oh no. Oh yes. Those flooding rains that struck Melbourne? They struck us, too. Rather stealthily, possibly through our gum-leaf-filled gutters at second-storey height. 

Wow. 

Goodbye leisurely morning of picking up crap, hello panic stations treading towels into carpet and setting up blow heaters to try and dry the mat out pre-afternoon teaching. Loud, epiphanic curses when I discovered my little black book (a diligent effort at record-keeping, tracking each student’s progress in 2010 sopping, every page adhering to the other in a gloppy papier-mache mess. I haven’t yet reached a state of gratitude that my (mostly irreplaceable) teaching theses and workbooks were all safely stowed on shelves and have kept their ink on. Maybe I’ll get there when my carpet’s dry again.