I love having a laptop. I’m sitting in my loungeroom, by my front window, while typing this - I’m waiting for Master J to arrive home in his taxi. Our neighbours probably wonder about this - a taxi picking up a school kid morning and afternoon - but our closest neighbours are not the sort of people you want to share personal information with. Certainly nothing quite as personal as a child’s disability and transport arrangements. As it is, the father of the ‘across the street’ household feels it necessary to leerily acknowledge me every time I walk out of the house. And as I’m clicking away at my keyboard, I can hear the same man and his wife YELLING at each other from what appears to be opposite ends of their house. I am sitting at least thirty metres (90 or so feet) away inside my own house and I can hear them clear as day. Yeah. Not giving out personal details to those folk!
Talented Hubby has me a bit worried at the moment. He’s about the busiest he’s ever been at work and people keep giving him more work without allowing him the time to finish the old stuff. His job is one where ‘urgent’ matters must be dealt with straight away but this leaves him in a pretty pickle. He goes on a 3 week stint of annual leave in one week but we both suspect he’ll be working a couple of extra days - unpaid - just to catch up. There are certain things that cannot wait until he returns from leave so he’s forced to work the extra. It’s frustrating for me because I can’t in any way help him with his workload. The only thing I can do is minimise craziness here at home (yeah, good luck with that Lizzie - school’s out!) so that when he does walk through the door, he can ’switch off’ more readily. The more he relaxes at home, the better he is able to deal with the horrendous amount of work stuff he’s got on his plate at the moment. Still, I wish I could take some of the burden from him.
Boof and Moo have officially finished school for the year - bye bye Grades 3 and 1! Moo also managed to lose another tooth today, making it a total of three falling out over about a three week period (the third one is just baaaaarely hanging on). Two of those teeth are her top front ones. Christmas pictures this year are going to be just de-light-ful, LOL.
Oh, what kerfuffle for the last day of term/the school year though! Total insanity! But all the kids had a good last day - Boof managed to score a classroom pizza party and a Kris Kringle with the other students in his class today (not to mention a nearly 700 strong school excursion to a fun park on Monday!) and Moo has pretty much been celebrating all week, with a student representative council (of which she’s been a part of this semester) party on Tuesday, her class party on Wednesday and nothing but crafts today. Everyone is exhausted. We gave our teacher gifts out yesterday and Boof’s teacher, upon hearing about Talented Hubby’s photography, asked if we had any spare calendars of his work at home. We did, so she bought one to use as a Christmas present (I don’t know how the man does it. I can’t get a magazine to pick up my work and he keeps selling the same shots over and over with great success! LOL). Master J doesn’t officially finish school for the year until tomorrow but his last day will also prove to be a pretty cushy arrangement, I’m sure. As we have an unexpected extra day off for Boof and Moo, I’m taking them to the movies tomorrow morning while J is still in school - frugal, as it was a free double movie pass given to TH through his work.
And that’s about the time that I’ll get home, collapse, eat some chocolate and alternatively rejoice/sink into a pit of despair over the fact we have 6 weeks of summer holidays stretching out in front of us - probably in that order too. I love my children a ridiculous amount but by golly, they can be NOISE-EEE.
I really hope January bucks the trend and remains in the moderate temps. We’ve had barely a decent ’summery warm’ day so far this late spring/early summer which is a bit unusual and usually means a later start to summer proper, and hotter, dryer temperatures. Last year our city secured a new record - the longest metro 35ºC (95ºF) plus heatwave since they began keeping records back in the dark ages. I thought I was going to DIE.
You Florida and Arizona folk must be made of galvanized steel (for toughness) fashioned with portable cooling systems because that kind of heat on a regular basis would make me want to shrivel up in a little ball and cry. A LOT.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Does Switching BACK To Blogger Mean Returning To The Dark Ages?
I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. My domain registration, and therefore my web hosting, is up for renewal in late February - I got a reminder notice this week.
When Lizzie’s Home first started, it was on Blogger, and I was with them for about a year. I began to get frustrated with the lack of features compared to what I was hearing about Wordpress. Bloggy friends urged me to make the leap, and I did. Talented Hubby (who couldn’t then, and still doesn’t now, fully understand the lure of blogging, LOL) and I made a deal - we would pay for one year of registration and hosting and when the time came to renew, I would work out how to make the blog itself pay for an additional year.
You might already know that Lizzie’s Home does not accept paid advertising. This was a decision I made in the beginning due to personal conviction and honestly? My stats were poor (still are compared to most bloggers I read) and wouldn’t have garnered me much in cash anyway - and so weren’t likely to get me the $85 (AUD) or so needed to renew everything (and for the record, this isn’t for expensive hosting either. It’s the cheapest one I could find - without resorting to the ad-filled free host providers - at $4 US per month). In typical Lizzie fashion, I’ve put off thinking about it again until I needed to. That would be now.
In the time that I’ve been with Wordpress, Blogger has improved its features markedly. There are far more gadgets to choose from now and you can schedule posts, the lack of which, as silly as this sounds, was a big bug-bear for me before. And I’m not Miss Uber Blogger. Not likely to be either. I natter away here and I’m happy with that. It’s perhaps not so important for me, who doesn’t have much of a desire to make blogging a ‘business’, to have the very high customisation level that Wordpress gives.
So. Here’s where I’m at, and I’d like your opinions. These are random thoughts and questions. Decipher at will :P
I can re-examine my ‘no ads’ policy now that the blog is ever-so-slightly more popular than in the first couple of months. It may not help me in time for my 2009 renewal but perhaps the year after that. Not sure how I feel about that. If there was a way I could make the blog self-sustaining without resorting to ads, then I’d do that, but I can’t work out how that could be possible. Ideas?
I could finish that ebook I’ve had on the go for donkey’s years and sell a few copies.
I have a second blog, Binder Basics, which has always been on Blogger. The difference in ease-of-editing between that one and here is HUGE. If I want to change the size of a font in the sidebar on Lizzie’s Home I have to go through a convoluted process of copying the CSS file, altering it, reuploading it through ftp (FileZilla), hoping it works, then viewing the site live. If it didn’t work or just looks wrong, I have to repeat the process. It takes forever. Binder Basics on the other hand, requires just a simple tweak in the ‘Edit HTML’ box, and you can preview it before it goes live. No extra file transfer stuff at all. And HTML just seems easier to me somehow. There’s one file - as opposed to perhaps a dozen with Lizzie’s Home. If I want to change the header on Blogger, its dead easy. If I want to change the font of the main posts on Lizzie’s Home, that’s one file. If I want to change the pictures in the boxes you see to your right, that’s an entirely different file. Plus like ten more. Each requiring the FileZilla treatment. Tedious. Which is probably why you’ve been staring at the same blank boxes for weeks and weeks. Sometimes you just want to get in and get out. Some die-hard Wordpress users will have developed shortcuts or know how to better edit and preview their pages using a specialist web browser (tried that) but if I’m honest with myself, blogging will never be my ‘business’ and every hour spent tweaking along at a snail’s pace is an hour I’m not concentrating on family.
There have been some concerns in Bloggityville in the past about Blogger controlling your content - if Blogger goes belly-up for whatever reason, then your blog (and all your hard work) is toast. Can someone give me some facts about that? It was one of the reasons I switched but even before I did, I had never had a problem with Blogger freezing me out of my blog unless it was for routine maintenance (and so was common to all Blogger blogs, and only for a couple of hours at a time).
The big question - how important is a ’dot com’ to me? It’s nice to have a nice short URL, but if I am otherwise satisfied with the features and ease-of-use of Blogger, is it worth paying $85 (probably more now the Aussie dollar has dropped against the US buck) for what essentially amounts to blog branding? If I’m not actually selling anything here (and so don’t have to make it super-dooper easy for customers to get to me via the shortest possible URL), and most of my readers do so through Google Reader or Bloglines (ie, not typing in the address each time), then how much does a longer URL matter? Is it possible to have a successful blog at Blogger? Are all the big name folk with Wordpress or Typepad and is that what differentiates them as ‘big name’ (because they can customise to the minute detail and create something totally unique)? I’ve seen some awesome Blogger blogs that have been wonderfully set up. To be honest, this is the biggest sticking poing for me - is it worth paying this money simply for a dot com?
Another biggie: How many readers will I lose switching back? I was disheartened to see a 30+ subscriber drop in the last day or two and I’m hoping its a glitch like that one that saw me excited to see the flip side of 100 not too long ago. How many more will leave if I go back to the harder to remember ….blogspot.com?
AND… is it even POSSIBLE to import old posts TO Blogger? I know you can (obviously) import TO Wordpress, but is it possible to reverse it? If I found out it couldn’t be done, then game over, I’m sticking with Wordpress.
As I said, I’ve seen some really beautiful Blogger designs and there’s always the option of hiring a designer down the track a bit if I can’t come up with something cool on my own. In the meantime, as I work my way through the editing process for Binder Basics, I can’t help feeling a bit annoyed that it isn’t that easy for both blogs. Then I look at Lizzie’s Home and LOVE the idea of pages, which you can’t get in Blogger. Clearly, I need someone to rationally discuss the pros and cons with me.
Fire away folks! Thoughts are much appreciated. If a blogger switched URLs on you, how much hassle (re-subscribing to new URL etc) would you go through to keep reading? If its a blog you enjoy, would it bother you much if the URL got longer or wasn’t quite so ‘brand-y’?
* This post originally uploaded to lizzieshome.com. I've since made the plunge back to Blogger and haven't regretted it at all! Well, except when it came to manually transferring alllll my posts from my 'Wordpress year' over, LOL.
When Lizzie’s Home first started, it was on Blogger, and I was with them for about a year. I began to get frustrated with the lack of features compared to what I was hearing about Wordpress. Bloggy friends urged me to make the leap, and I did. Talented Hubby (who couldn’t then, and still doesn’t now, fully understand the lure of blogging, LOL) and I made a deal - we would pay for one year of registration and hosting and when the time came to renew, I would work out how to make the blog itself pay for an additional year.
You might already know that Lizzie’s Home does not accept paid advertising. This was a decision I made in the beginning due to personal conviction and honestly? My stats were poor (still are compared to most bloggers I read) and wouldn’t have garnered me much in cash anyway - and so weren’t likely to get me the $85 (AUD) or so needed to renew everything (and for the record, this isn’t for expensive hosting either. It’s the cheapest one I could find - without resorting to the ad-filled free host providers - at $4 US per month). In typical Lizzie fashion, I’ve put off thinking about it again until I needed to. That would be now.
In the time that I’ve been with Wordpress, Blogger has improved its features markedly. There are far more gadgets to choose from now and you can schedule posts, the lack of which, as silly as this sounds, was a big bug-bear for me before. And I’m not Miss Uber Blogger. Not likely to be either. I natter away here and I’m happy with that. It’s perhaps not so important for me, who doesn’t have much of a desire to make blogging a ‘business’, to have the very high customisation level that Wordpress gives.
So. Here’s where I’m at, and I’d like your opinions. These are random thoughts and questions. Decipher at will :P
I can re-examine my ‘no ads’ policy now that the blog is ever-so-slightly more popular than in the first couple of months. It may not help me in time for my 2009 renewal but perhaps the year after that. Not sure how I feel about that. If there was a way I could make the blog self-sustaining without resorting to ads, then I’d do that, but I can’t work out how that could be possible. Ideas?
I could finish that ebook I’ve had on the go for donkey’s years and sell a few copies.
I have a second blog, Binder Basics, which has always been on Blogger. The difference in ease-of-editing between that one and here is HUGE. If I want to change the size of a font in the sidebar on Lizzie’s Home I have to go through a convoluted process of copying the CSS file, altering it, reuploading it through ftp (FileZilla), hoping it works, then viewing the site live. If it didn’t work or just looks wrong, I have to repeat the process. It takes forever. Binder Basics on the other hand, requires just a simple tweak in the ‘Edit HTML’ box, and you can preview it before it goes live. No extra file transfer stuff at all. And HTML just seems easier to me somehow. There’s one file - as opposed to perhaps a dozen with Lizzie’s Home. If I want to change the header on Blogger, its dead easy. If I want to change the font of the main posts on Lizzie’s Home, that’s one file. If I want to change the pictures in the boxes you see to your right, that’s an entirely different file. Plus like ten more. Each requiring the FileZilla treatment. Tedious. Which is probably why you’ve been staring at the same blank boxes for weeks and weeks. Sometimes you just want to get in and get out. Some die-hard Wordpress users will have developed shortcuts or know how to better edit and preview their pages using a specialist web browser (tried that) but if I’m honest with myself, blogging will never be my ‘business’ and every hour spent tweaking along at a snail’s pace is an hour I’m not concentrating on family.
There have been some concerns in Bloggityville in the past about Blogger controlling your content - if Blogger goes belly-up for whatever reason, then your blog (and all your hard work) is toast. Can someone give me some facts about that? It was one of the reasons I switched but even before I did, I had never had a problem with Blogger freezing me out of my blog unless it was for routine maintenance (and so was common to all Blogger blogs, and only for a couple of hours at a time).
The big question - how important is a ’dot com’ to me? It’s nice to have a nice short URL, but if I am otherwise satisfied with the features and ease-of-use of Blogger, is it worth paying $85 (probably more now the Aussie dollar has dropped against the US buck) for what essentially amounts to blog branding? If I’m not actually selling anything here (and so don’t have to make it super-dooper easy for customers to get to me via the shortest possible URL), and most of my readers do so through Google Reader or Bloglines (ie, not typing in the address each time), then how much does a longer URL matter? Is it possible to have a successful blog at Blogger? Are all the big name folk with Wordpress or Typepad and is that what differentiates them as ‘big name’ (because they can customise to the minute detail and create something totally unique)? I’ve seen some awesome Blogger blogs that have been wonderfully set up. To be honest, this is the biggest sticking poing for me - is it worth paying this money simply for a dot com?
Another biggie: How many readers will I lose switching back? I was disheartened to see a 30+ subscriber drop in the last day or two and I’m hoping its a glitch like that one that saw me excited to see the flip side of 100 not too long ago. How many more will leave if I go back to the harder to remember ….blogspot.com?
AND… is it even POSSIBLE to import old posts TO Blogger? I know you can (obviously) import TO Wordpress, but is it possible to reverse it? If I found out it couldn’t be done, then game over, I’m sticking with Wordpress.
As I said, I’ve seen some really beautiful Blogger designs and there’s always the option of hiring a designer down the track a bit if I can’t come up with something cool on my own. In the meantime, as I work my way through the editing process for Binder Basics, I can’t help feeling a bit annoyed that it isn’t that easy for both blogs. Then I look at Lizzie’s Home and LOVE the idea of pages, which you can’t get in Blogger. Clearly, I need someone to rationally discuss the pros and cons with me.
Fire away folks! Thoughts are much appreciated. If a blogger switched URLs on you, how much hassle (re-subscribing to new URL etc) would you go through to keep reading? If its a blog you enjoy, would it bother you much if the URL got longer or wasn’t quite so ‘brand-y’?
* This post originally uploaded to lizzieshome.com. I've since made the plunge back to Blogger and haven't regretted it at all! Well, except when it came to manually transferring alllll my posts from my 'Wordpress year' over, LOL.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The One Where Every Coffee Becomes "Irish"
Well would you look at that. NaBloPoMo ends and the well of creativity dries up. Not that all my NaBlo posts were particularly enlightening (”Smiling’s my favourite!” tee hee, it still cracks me up) but it did at least force me to keep the blog afloat.
Isn’t December the most insane month EVER? We are bucking our usual trend this year and haven’t yet begun our proper Christmas shopping. Normally we’d be about 90% done by now. Normally I’d be obsessing over lists and budgets and what I’m going to bake for such-and-such’s holiday get-together. Weirdly enough, that hasn’t happened so much this year. Probably because we’re doing a couple of bigger family presents this year instead of racing around like mad chickens buying this or that cool toy on sale. We’re not terribly big spenders anyway, but just not having to be ‘on the hunt’ so much over November and December has been refreshing.
Oh, but the end-of-school-year events are killing me. In Australia, we finish up our school year right before Christmas and have a 6 week break over what is meant to be the bulk of our summer (although the way the season is shaping up this year, we’ll still be sweltering into March…sigh). We return for the new school year generally in the last week of January, give or take a little for individual schools and states. Today marked the beginning of the Last Week. Traditionally, the Last Week is hyperactive to the core. I honestly don’t know how working parents manage - I stay at home and I’ve been struggling to get to all the school events and assemblies and morning teas these last couple of weeks.
I both love and hate this last week of school. I love it because Christmas looms and that means relaxation, good food, good company, no dawn o’clock wake up calls to get going on the school prep, lots of lazy days. I hate it because I’ve grown far too used to not having the kids underfoot during the day when school’s in and 6 weeks of living in each other’s pockets can take it’s toll. Usually Talented Hubby is able to schedule part of his annual leave during the summer holidays which again, has its good and bad points - he’s here (yay!) but he’s also HERE if you get my drift, LOL. Weekends are already like this (whether Daddy is working or not) but the holidays seem to revolve around a continual rhythm of food preparation to satisfy the other members of Chez Liz. I spend most of the time fantasizing about personal chefs and TH with a palm frond and grapes, LOL.
And I’m always kind of sad to see another year finish for the kids. They are shooting up like weeds (TH and I both think Master J will eclipse my height of 5′3″ in another 18 months or so…at age ELEVEN AND A HALF) and some of their friends will move on to new classrooms. Next year new friendships will form and old ones will move to ‘mere acquaintances’. The teachers do make an effort to retain one or two good friends for the kids as they move up to the next year level (in our school each year has at least 3 classes of the same grade) but it’s not the same. Next year will also see a new dynamic of Classroom Mums. There are always the core faithful, LOL - the Mum who’s always doing the readers, the one who always organizes the teacher gifts, the ones that kiss and drop faster than lightning, the one who’s not a Mum but a Dad and so stands out like a sore thumb - but there are new faces too. You get used to a particular group of parents the same way the kids probably get used to their peers - and then it all changes. Life is fleeting.
We’ve had a big year and an especially stressful six weeks. We’re looking forward to the break!
Isn’t December the most insane month EVER? We are bucking our usual trend this year and haven’t yet begun our proper Christmas shopping. Normally we’d be about 90% done by now. Normally I’d be obsessing over lists and budgets and what I’m going to bake for such-and-such’s holiday get-together. Weirdly enough, that hasn’t happened so much this year. Probably because we’re doing a couple of bigger family presents this year instead of racing around like mad chickens buying this or that cool toy on sale. We’re not terribly big spenders anyway, but just not having to be ‘on the hunt’ so much over November and December has been refreshing.
Oh, but the end-of-school-year events are killing me. In Australia, we finish up our school year right before Christmas and have a 6 week break over what is meant to be the bulk of our summer (although the way the season is shaping up this year, we’ll still be sweltering into March…sigh). We return for the new school year generally in the last week of January, give or take a little for individual schools and states. Today marked the beginning of the Last Week. Traditionally, the Last Week is hyperactive to the core. I honestly don’t know how working parents manage - I stay at home and I’ve been struggling to get to all the school events and assemblies and morning teas these last couple of weeks.
I both love and hate this last week of school. I love it because Christmas looms and that means relaxation, good food, good company, no dawn o’clock wake up calls to get going on the school prep, lots of lazy days. I hate it because I’ve grown far too used to not having the kids underfoot during the day when school’s in and 6 weeks of living in each other’s pockets can take it’s toll. Usually Talented Hubby is able to schedule part of his annual leave during the summer holidays which again, has its good and bad points - he’s here (yay!) but he’s also HERE if you get my drift, LOL. Weekends are already like this (whether Daddy is working or not) but the holidays seem to revolve around a continual rhythm of food preparation to satisfy the other members of Chez Liz. I spend most of the time fantasizing about personal chefs and TH with a palm frond and grapes, LOL.
And I’m always kind of sad to see another year finish for the kids. They are shooting up like weeds (TH and I both think Master J will eclipse my height of 5′3″ in another 18 months or so…at age ELEVEN AND A HALF) and some of their friends will move on to new classrooms. Next year new friendships will form and old ones will move to ‘mere acquaintances’. The teachers do make an effort to retain one or two good friends for the kids as they move up to the next year level (in our school each year has at least 3 classes of the same grade) but it’s not the same. Next year will also see a new dynamic of Classroom Mums. There are always the core faithful, LOL - the Mum who’s always doing the readers, the one who always organizes the teacher gifts, the ones that kiss and drop faster than lightning, the one who’s not a Mum but a Dad and so stands out like a sore thumb - but there are new faces too. You get used to a particular group of parents the same way the kids probably get used to their peers - and then it all changes. Life is fleeting.
We’ve had a big year and an especially stressful six weeks. We’re looking forward to the break!
Friday, December 5, 2008
I'm Not The Only One, Right?
I’m sitting here with a hot cup of tea and two one no more cinnamon donuts. I shouldn’t have eaten the donuts. Especially considering today.
My friends…today I went clothes shopping.
I think I have a defective female gene somewhere. I’m not into clothes (much), shoes, purses, jewellery or makeup. Which, apart from the fact my hoo-ha has thrice been a tunnel-o-baby, pretty much makes me a man, right? I am uber-casual. All the time. I’m more happy kickin’ back with a cup of tea and a good book, or perhaps going out to a movie and some takeout, than I am dressed to the nines, sitting in a fancy-schmancey restaurant obsessing over the expense of the evening. I want to toss my shoes in a corner (smells and all), and just be. The only ‘heels’ I own are massive and chunky and attached to boots I never wear. I have never owned a pair of stilettos, never felt in control of all my limbs in them. Never learned to walk in them properly and now I’m doomed to a life of flat-footedness. I wear a ‘Mum uniform’ and you know what? I don’t even care most of the time. I am not my accessories! Except when the horror-of-horrors rolls around:
The Spousal Unit’s Work Christmas Party.
Let’s just say my husband works in a very community-minded field of expertise. And lets just say that ‘wives are invited’ social situations come up rarely during the year - once for a team’s Christmas mostly informal get-together, once for a larger organizational family day (where I can mercifully busy myself with the affairs of the Piglets rather than butcher my way through multitudes of small talk) and perhaps one barbecue at another time during the year. During these occasions (and for a hefty period of time leading up to them), my relaxed happy-go-lucky-no-airs-here personality kind of goes KAPOOF and I turn into the Crazy Insecure Wife Lady.
I seriously LOVE what Talented Hubby does for a living. LOVE. IT. It makes me feel warm and cozy and proud like 364 days of the year (I take one day off to let the air out of his already-too-inflated head…routine maintenence, you see). And the people he works with are (according to my limited face-to-face time and many, many cool stories via TH himself) seriously cool people. The work they do is HARD. These last few weeks I have never seen TH as stressed as he is now. It’s a bit of a worry actually. But I know TH appreciates the challenge and I hope he knows I appreciate him for doing it.
However.
My heart always clenches up when I’m in social situations with his workmates. Which is weird, because I’m totally awesome and I know if the contact was more regular, the nervousness would totally go. There’s just not all that many opportunities to foster that extra involvement. So then you throw in a rare social interaction and all its associated rabid butterflies, a few too many pounds, a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease AND the fact that everyone else knows what all the inside jokes are, and I’m pretty much lost. I literally have to excuse myself to go to the ladies room and physically pull my cheeks down because the smile has been plastered on so long my facial muscles have completely frozen in place. It’s not that I don’t like the people. It’s more that I really do like them but the nature of TH’s work situation is that teams rotate members fairly frequently and by the time the next social event comes around, you might only know or remember one face. Makes it pretty hard to throw down common friendship roots.
Anyhoo, so I’d decided I needed to be the best example of wifely devotion and representation I could be, and apparently that needed to occur wearing new clothes.
Another thing I can put down to genetics - I have a butt. And thighs. Enough for three or four people I reckon. Except for there’s just one of me, and I’m not sharin’. Clothes shopping is right up there on a list of things I avoid until the Last Possible Second - along with shopping specifically for jeans (and yes, that deserves special mention because, um, its JEANS people!), doing my dishes, sorting laundry and leaving for the school run in the morning. It’s brutal, painful, disheartening, expensive and, ultimately, disappointing. Mostly because I love pretty things like the next girl but I won’t torment myself like I see so many other girls doing by pouring myself into unflattering and too-small garments just for fashion trends. Just won’t do it. I guess this is what bore my Jeans Philosophy. I wear jeans year-round, even in summer, because with the eleventy-billion different types out there, I figure there has to be ONE PAIR with my name on it. The nirvana of denim. The Holy Bootcut. Buying jeans for me is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Did you know they paint that thing continuously? Takes ‘em something like seven years to get from one end of the other and by that time, its due for another spruce-up so they begin again. Same deal with jeans. I finally find a decent pair - you know, the one that doesn’t expose either muffin top or coin-slottage, a rare find indeed! - and then immediately begin the search for the next. I live in my jeans.
So there I was today, trying on skirt after skirt, dress after dress, trying to find something that is the perfect cross between Dutiful Wife and We’re Having Hot Married S*x, Neener Neener Neener! - and do you think I could find anything? Skirts don’t hide my butt, they massively enlarge my hips. No kidding. And I’m SHORT. When did women’s legs get so darn long! I try on a pair of regular length, regular bootcut, non-stretch jeans and the end of the pant leg has formed a wierd malformed flipper over one foot. Well, today the moon wasn’t aligned with the sun or Target or something because no luck on the jeans front either. Finally bought several plain-ish tees and then, under the insistence from a pal who I’d conned into coming with me, tried on some shoes (ran out of time to buy any…sigh) and bought a $25 piece of costume jewellery that might go with one of the tees I bought. Like I said - depressing.
Well, I did try.
My friends…today I went clothes shopping.
I think I have a defective female gene somewhere. I’m not into clothes (much), shoes, purses, jewellery or makeup. Which, apart from the fact my hoo-ha has thrice been a tunnel-o-baby, pretty much makes me a man, right? I am uber-casual. All the time. I’m more happy kickin’ back with a cup of tea and a good book, or perhaps going out to a movie and some takeout, than I am dressed to the nines, sitting in a fancy-schmancey restaurant obsessing over the expense of the evening. I want to toss my shoes in a corner (smells and all), and just be. The only ‘heels’ I own are massive and chunky and attached to boots I never wear. I have never owned a pair of stilettos, never felt in control of all my limbs in them. Never learned to walk in them properly and now I’m doomed to a life of flat-footedness. I wear a ‘Mum uniform’ and you know what? I don’t even care most of the time. I am not my accessories! Except when the horror-of-horrors rolls around:
The Spousal Unit’s Work Christmas Party.
Let’s just say my husband works in a very community-minded field of expertise. And lets just say that ‘wives are invited’ social situations come up rarely during the year - once for a team’s Christmas mostly informal get-together, once for a larger organizational family day (where I can mercifully busy myself with the affairs of the Piglets rather than butcher my way through multitudes of small talk) and perhaps one barbecue at another time during the year. During these occasions (and for a hefty period of time leading up to them), my relaxed happy-go-lucky-no-airs-here personality kind of goes KAPOOF and I turn into the Crazy Insecure Wife Lady.
I seriously LOVE what Talented Hubby does for a living. LOVE. IT. It makes me feel warm and cozy and proud like 364 days of the year (I take one day off to let the air out of his already-too-inflated head…routine maintenence, you see). And the people he works with are (according to my limited face-to-face time and many, many cool stories via TH himself) seriously cool people. The work they do is HARD. These last few weeks I have never seen TH as stressed as he is now. It’s a bit of a worry actually. But I know TH appreciates the challenge and I hope he knows I appreciate him for doing it.
However.
My heart always clenches up when I’m in social situations with his workmates. Which is weird, because I’m totally awesome and I know if the contact was more regular, the nervousness would totally go. There’s just not all that many opportunities to foster that extra involvement. So then you throw in a rare social interaction and all its associated rabid butterflies, a few too many pounds, a serious case of foot-in-mouth disease AND the fact that everyone else knows what all the inside jokes are, and I’m pretty much lost. I literally have to excuse myself to go to the ladies room and physically pull my cheeks down because the smile has been plastered on so long my facial muscles have completely frozen in place. It’s not that I don’t like the people. It’s more that I really do like them but the nature of TH’s work situation is that teams rotate members fairly frequently and by the time the next social event comes around, you might only know or remember one face. Makes it pretty hard to throw down common friendship roots.
Anyhoo, so I’d decided I needed to be the best example of wifely devotion and representation I could be, and apparently that needed to occur wearing new clothes.
Another thing I can put down to genetics - I have a butt. And thighs. Enough for three or four people I reckon. Except for there’s just one of me, and I’m not sharin’. Clothes shopping is right up there on a list of things I avoid until the Last Possible Second - along with shopping specifically for jeans (and yes, that deserves special mention because, um, its JEANS people!), doing my dishes, sorting laundry and leaving for the school run in the morning. It’s brutal, painful, disheartening, expensive and, ultimately, disappointing. Mostly because I love pretty things like the next girl but I won’t torment myself like I see so many other girls doing by pouring myself into unflattering and too-small garments just for fashion trends. Just won’t do it. I guess this is what bore my Jeans Philosophy. I wear jeans year-round, even in summer, because with the eleventy-billion different types out there, I figure there has to be ONE PAIR with my name on it. The nirvana of denim. The Holy Bootcut. Buying jeans for me is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Did you know they paint that thing continuously? Takes ‘em something like seven years to get from one end of the other and by that time, its due for another spruce-up so they begin again. Same deal with jeans. I finally find a decent pair - you know, the one that doesn’t expose either muffin top or coin-slottage, a rare find indeed! - and then immediately begin the search for the next. I live in my jeans.
So there I was today, trying on skirt after skirt, dress after dress, trying to find something that is the perfect cross between Dutiful Wife and We’re Having Hot Married S*x, Neener Neener Neener! - and do you think I could find anything? Skirts don’t hide my butt, they massively enlarge my hips. No kidding. And I’m SHORT. When did women’s legs get so darn long! I try on a pair of regular length, regular bootcut, non-stretch jeans and the end of the pant leg has formed a wierd malformed flipper over one foot. Well, today the moon wasn’t aligned with the sun or Target or something because no luck on the jeans front either. Finally bought several plain-ish tees and then, under the insistence from a pal who I’d conned into coming with me, tried on some shoes (ran out of time to buy any…sigh) and bought a $25 piece of costume jewellery that might go with one of the tees I bought. Like I said - depressing.
Well, I did try.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Super Dooper Top Secret Stuff
Tomorrow is Talented Hubby’s birthday. Having reached the Big Three-Oh last year, this year sees him hitting the downward slide to forty, LOL - 31.
Ten years ago, I gave him a 4 week old son as a 21st birthday present. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get that immaculate conception thing going this time around to recreate the magic that was spawning his child at the tender age of just-past-nineteen. He’ll live. And will probably give me the candy and chocolates for not giving him a repeat heart attack.
Tonight I have working on part of his present. I won’t say what it is, so don’t ask. And not because I’m worried he’ll work it out by reading my blog because hello? He’s vastly unimpressed with the whole blogging wife scenario to be honest. Actually, even when he knows what it is, I don’t think I can mention it here on the blog. Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s not that! No, this thing has to do with his profession (which we like to keep under wraps in Bloggityville for security reasons) and involves an inside joke. So really, it wouldn’t have made a lick of sense to any of you anyway. You’re welcome.
Tomorrow is a seriously massive day actually. Of course TH’s birthday shines front and centre but then there’s an excursion for First Heart Attack (aka, Master J) during the day and Boof and Moo’s school’s Christmas concert in the evening. J is going to a Christmas lunch/party put on by the Variety Club, a children’s charity. This particular party is held every year for special needs kids and is just wonderful (Aussies: Donate to the Variety Club. My son thanks you).
This week sees us launch into the busiest two weeks of the entire school year by far. We’re in the last of our school year before a 6 week break (school resumes in the last week of January for the new school year). EVERY SINGLE DAY has four or five tasks or events going on specific to this time of the year - it is utter chaos Next week, I have to bring a plate of morning tea to two separate class events Moo is involved with - on consecutive days. Guess what I’ll be doing on the weekend? And I just worked out I have just TWENTY shopping days left (we’re travelling). EEEK!
On a pleasant note - I have two new shows to watch this summer. We get all sorts of US television programs in weird convoluted timeframes - and summer, when the ratings season has ended and the networks are looking to fill spots or to try out shows they’re not sure will take off down here, usually sees an influx. Last night I watched Army Wives and tonight it was Eli Stone. Can see myself getting right into the last one although the opening story about the MMR vaccine causing a little boy’s autism kiiiind of grated just a little. Just a little bug bear of mine. Apart from that, a good show. Although, I do have George Michael’s “Faith” running through my head on a loop…grrr…
And on that note, I’m off to throw together a batch of brownies. I am SO looking foward to the slower days of summer!
Ten years ago, I gave him a 4 week old son as a 21st birthday present. Try as I might, I just couldn’t get that immaculate conception thing going this time around to recreate the magic that was spawning his child at the tender age of just-past-nineteen. He’ll live. And will probably give me the candy and chocolates for not giving him a repeat heart attack.
Tonight I have working on part of his present. I won’t say what it is, so don’t ask. And not because I’m worried he’ll work it out by reading my blog because hello? He’s vastly unimpressed with the whole blogging wife scenario to be honest. Actually, even when he knows what it is, I don’t think I can mention it here on the blog. Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s not that! No, this thing has to do with his profession (which we like to keep under wraps in Bloggityville for security reasons) and involves an inside joke. So really, it wouldn’t have made a lick of sense to any of you anyway. You’re welcome.
Tomorrow is a seriously massive day actually. Of course TH’s birthday shines front and centre but then there’s an excursion for First Heart Attack (aka, Master J) during the day and Boof and Moo’s school’s Christmas concert in the evening. J is going to a Christmas lunch/party put on by the Variety Club, a children’s charity. This particular party is held every year for special needs kids and is just wonderful (Aussies: Donate to the Variety Club. My son thanks you).
This week sees us launch into the busiest two weeks of the entire school year by far. We’re in the last of our school year before a 6 week break (school resumes in the last week of January for the new school year). EVERY SINGLE DAY has four or five tasks or events going on specific to this time of the year - it is utter chaos Next week, I have to bring a plate of morning tea to two separate class events Moo is involved with - on consecutive days. Guess what I’ll be doing on the weekend? And I just worked out I have just TWENTY shopping days left (we’re travelling). EEEK!
On a pleasant note - I have two new shows to watch this summer. We get all sorts of US television programs in weird convoluted timeframes - and summer, when the ratings season has ended and the networks are looking to fill spots or to try out shows they’re not sure will take off down here, usually sees an influx. Last night I watched Army Wives and tonight it was Eli Stone. Can see myself getting right into the last one although the opening story about the MMR vaccine causing a little boy’s autism kiiiind of grated just a little. Just a little bug bear of mine. Apart from that, a good show. Although, I do have George Michael’s “Faith” running through my head on a loop…grrr…
And on that note, I’m off to throw together a batch of brownies. I am SO looking foward to the slower days of summer!
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