Dear diary...

Dear diary….

The first diary I kept was of my annual family trip to Mooloolaba, Queensland, and it revolved around what I ate for breakfast, lunch and tea and came complete with empty sugar sachets and chocolate bar wrappers. Let’s face it; seven year olds don’t have much emotional baggage to offload.

Tummy Pains of the Mind (I became a little more creative – and tragic) documented the highs and lows of my adolescent love life. Even now, it can induce a tear or two if I re-read my flurry of thoughts. I worked three jobs, went to university and fell hard when rejected by a suitor but there were some amazing highs.

Here’s a tragic snippet to myself:

“Dave*, I’ll always love you for what you gave me, how you made me laugh and I [sic] felt as though I had a true evergreen friend – well I got that wrong you deciduous prick!”

I have quite a collection of travel diaries and still can’t believe that I whitewater rafted down the Zambezi River at Victoria Falls, Africa, despite being terrified of being dumped by a wave. Rapids are waves!

Last year, I started a journal again and worked out pretty quickly that when there were big gaps I was contented and had no need to blurt all over the page.  When I write a diary it gives a voice to my raw emotions. I’m not interested in writing about what I eat or the trivial stuff anymore.

Then there is my 24-7 diary that I live by, marking sport training, meetings, dinners, appointments and kinder and school events. Anything and everything gets scribbled in.

The diary is a versatile medium where we communicate our inner thoughts. Some like to sweat it out at the gym, tune in to their IPod, tie themselves up in knots at yoga and others like to grab their diary and disappear behinds its pages. You can always look back on it when you are in a more subjective mood and you have the written memories forever. Smile. Cringe. Cry. Laugh

Tummy Pains in the Mind is already a collectors item – for hopeless romantics anyway…

* Not his real name of course – that’s between my diary and me

Vootball Kid

Megs and the Vootball* Kids has been sitting on my son’s shelf begging to be read by a seven-year-old sports fanatic. Sport begins on my bedroom door every morning with the thump of a tennis ball or downball, continues in the playground in the form of a football, soccer or basketball game and resumes in my parent’s backyard as a cricket match nearly every day. A ball is my son’s constant companion. It makes sense that he would want to read a book about soccer. After all, his dad is English!

This junior novel deals with the issues of being the new kid on the block and finding your niche in a foreign country. It explains the basics of soccer and sheds light on Megs’ nickname. It also looks at remorse and effective ways to apologise. Both adult-to-child and child-to-child friendships are explored and parallels can be drawn with the movie Goodwill Hunting and the discovery of a genius school janitor.

I like to read junior novels for my book-writing course while noting ones that suit my son’s interests. Books that will sustain his thirst for reading and generate discussion are ideal. He took to Roald Dahl’s books easily. The vengeful Mr. Wonka with his sorry end for Augustus Gloop and Veruka Salt , four elderly adults top and tailing in a bed, and the magic of a chocolate river, were a great combination for a bedtime story.

I believe my son may also take a shine to Megs and the Vootball Kids, written by Neil Montagna Wallace from Bounce Books and assisted by Mark Schwarzer. If he does, there are two more books published in the series that follow the adventures of Megs, Paloma, Atti and the rest of the ‘vootball’ gang.

Typical of me, I am remotely connected to the author because we rented Neil’s brother’s house for three years and got to know his parents who popped in now and again and updated me on the book and the characters that resemble some of their family members. It’s great to see that it has become such a hit with young readers and parents alike.

No doubt the windows won’t be safe in our home when our son tries to do a Megs, but it’s a well-rounded story that teaches children about respecting all cultures and age groups and enjoying sport.

I rate this 8.5 out of 10 and you don’t have to love sport to read it. A sports nut kid would probably give it 10!

* Vootball – plays on the accent of Atti pronouncing football

Expired in Writing

I always know my birthday is nearing when it’s the expiry date stamped on the milk. Not that it reaches its sour end in my home with the lavish pouring over cereal each morning.

All good things come to an end though: special offers, movie tickets, parking meters, memberships, perishables, medicines, perfumes, friendships, contracts and passports. Some expiry dates we read with necessity, others we turn a blind eye to and some we ponder on the missed opportunity to see that Gold Class movie we never ended up using, or gym membership we didn’t really complete.

In my life I am currently grappling with some friendships and interests that may have met there expiry date and just like the Rev that begins to whiff around the edges so does my connection to the above. The slight hint of being ‘off’ is a prelude to the offensive odour that will hit me after expiry. Expiration is the end but sometimes the thought of wasting the opportunity to experience it is enough to halt its demise.

Often we are oblivious to the small purple or black print on our expendable goods and services. A written code that says enjoy me now before it’s too late doesn’t always catch our eye. But today I got great pleasure in pulling out a just about to expire voucher. Phew – better book that massage. And for the record, age-wise I am still very much in date.

40 reasons why we love Lani...

Today a bunch of the girls are going out to have some Thai, bubbles and a good laugh for my friend’s 40^th birthday celebrations. My friend is the complete package and you will see just how amazing she is when you read the 40 Reasons why we love Lani…

40 reasons why we love Lani

1.     She turns a 4-minute phone call into a 45 minute one

2.    She makes a gingerbread house for fun

3.    She is a creative entertainer

4.    She drives a cool Volvo with rear seats

5.    She smiles with her eyes

6.    She is a ‘more the merrier’ type of person

7.    She is incredibly thoughtful

8.    She has hysterical stories to tell

9.    She is a go-getter

10.    She can build a Mr. Squiggle rocket

11.     She is a wildlife warrior

12.    She cooks a mean mud cake

13.    She puts everyone else before herself

14.    She wears funky jewelry

15.    She always supports and encourages her children

16.    She has dinner for 6 on the table every night

17.   She does special deeds for friends

18.    She is honest

19.    She is humble

20.   She is the best multi-tasker I know

21.    She is always loveably late

22.   She never turns down a cuppa

23.   She has a passion for the outdoors

24.   She has wonderful friends that reflect the person she is

25.   She makes every day different

26.   She looks great in aqua and burnt orange

27.  She knows when to reach out to people

28.   She never forgets a friend’s problems

29.   She gives her family everything she’s got

30.   She has a great laugh

31.    She goes raspberry picking to support the bushfire community

32.   She always listens with her heart

33.   She loves spending time with John and the boys

34.   She adores her pets and treats them like humans

35.   She juggles, 2 at kinder and 2 at school with a smile

36.   She is so appreciative of the small things in life

37.  She is rich in spirit

38.   She is smart and on top of everything (lucky John..ha ha)

39.   She is a gorgeous friend

40.   And she is such a beautiful and individual woman

HApPy BiRtHdaY dEaR LAni

IKEA Acronymns

What comes to mind when you step into IKEA? Workers in loud yellow and navy shirts. Colours and patterns that clash in the average home, and useless accessories that have funny curves. Not to mention a labyrinth of displays when all you want is the bits and bobs at the end.

IKEA could stand for I Kan’t Endure Another maze or Iritating Kaleidoscope of Ergonomic Accessories, but really it is the initials of its founder Ingvar Kamprad and the farm he was born in Elmtaryd and a nearby village Agurriaryd.

How do I know that? My dear hub use to manage the top floor at IKEA, Richmond, in his period of retail management. My house is full of flatpack furniture from the days when staff got a damaged box for $10 and I’ve even read most of Ingvar’s Book, Leading by Design: The IKEA Story.

Bertil Torekull, a Swedish journalist, interviews Ingvar to gain some personal depth in the book. Ingvar, a Swedish furniture retailer started selling matchboxes from his bike as a five year old, moved on to fish, Christmas decorations, seeds and ballpoint pens. He then became involved in furniture and grew IKEA into a global company with over 41,000 workers in 150 stores in 30 countries with a global turnover of $6.25 billion in goods.

Ingvar had a dalliance with past Hitler supporters and neo fascist political groups in Sweden and in this book he described it as “the greatest mistake of my life.”

The book gives you a good grasp of his philosophies and the highs and lows of business. He must be doing something right because today IKEA was booming (almost unbearably for my friend and I on our annual pilgrimage for Christmas decorations and useless bits and bobs.)

With his billions, Ingvar lives in a modest home with (you guessed it) IKEA flatpack furniture and accessories. He flies with Easy Jet, drives his 15 year old Volvo and shops around for a cheap haircut. Cheap but solid – just like his furniture.

The Business of Poo - Book Review

What is our fascination with poo? Shit, droppings, crap, bowel movement, turd, stool, or bog. So many names that all equate to the same thing – the end product of our food.

Human feces revolts most of us and we have all sorts of sprays, fancy toilet brushes and ergonomic bowl designs to eliminate any contact whatsoever with it. Animals on the other hand leave their droppings out in the open for us all to see, step in, or perhaps use in our gardens.

Chicken poo, cow manure and horse poo are great for kick starting our veggie patches and citrus trees because of their organic matter. Animal dung is used in farming and residential gardens to enhance soil structure and its ability to hold extra nutrients and water. It’s cheap and it’s environmentally friendly to use it.

I saw two little girls selling bags of horse poo by the side of the road. What happened to lemons and home-baked biscuits? The site of the bagged poo made me think of a picture book story, The Story of the Little Mole who knew it was None of his Business, by Werner Holzwarth and Wolf Erlbruch

If you usually cringe at poo comments or jokes, this book is not for you. It is about a mole that is defecated on by another animal and his quest to identify the culprit.

The reader learns about the shape and size of various animals dropping and even gets an insight into sounds of the different poo: “splish, pish” and “flump,plump” and “rat-a-tat-tat” and finally “pling.”

It goes against my parent’s ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ warning with its ending, but it takes children on a journey with clever descriptions and makes them laugh about something that is a natural part of every day.

If you’ve got a boy – he’d love it. My kids affectionately refer to it as the Mole Poo Poo Book.

I was heartless and didn’t have time to stop for a bag of the girls’ horse poo (plus I was worried about the fumes and mess in my car.) I did however return the next day and take a picture of their beautiful handmade sign.

Horse Poo for sale $2 – a bargain for any garden!

Parenting Conundrums

I got the odd smack on the hand, or hairbrush across the backside as a child and I turned out all right. However, after reading my current parenting book, it’s not acceptable to use this excuse as a justification of a backhander on your misbehaving child. O.K so this Parenting: A Practical Guide for Raising Preschool and Primary School Children, by education consultant, Kathy Walker is going to make me feel like a bad Mum.

I read on and I get to the refusing to eat dinner part. Luckily my children eat their veggies first and know that dessert will not precede a full plate (another blackmail no no.) I had to laugh because Walker said that so many parents/carers use the 1960’s line “the poor starving children in Africa have no food.” Just last week, I had to show my kids some images of starving children on the Internet so that they would understand. Firstly we had a lesson in geography and then in poverty. My son decided it wasn’t too bad because the poor children got to eat porridge (gruel) his favourite cereal Perhaps a little early to feel empathy and now that Kathy said it’s a tired old line, I may have to think up something more exotic.

Walker’s book cover is attractive with its cluttered hooks and hanging school bags and coats. Each chapter is clearly set out under headings and separated into four parts: Understanding Yourself and Your Children; Proactive Parenting; Trouble Shooting and; Looking After Yourself.

Walker highlights the need to have normal non-costly interaction with your family by going for walks, reading books, gardening together etc. She touches on building resilience in our children and on providing a safe, predictable home life. Giving our children opportunities to try new experiences when appropriate and avoiding burdening them with high expectations.

Up to this point I’m ticking boxes. No entertainers at parties, lots of family time, trying to get the kids to resolve their conflict (not always without intervention) and eating together as a family. Then I read about reflective listening and every time I read it in educators books, the words ‘patronizing’ flash at me: “I can see you’re angry with me because I have told you not to do that.” My current comeback: “Don’t you dare speak to anyone like that.” Hmmmmm not that reflective on reflection

Then Walker lost me at “If the household is out of control, the children’s behavior is more likely to be erratic.” Try the house is out of control because of your devotion to your children. A cluttered home is a cosy home and one where children feel free to explore and express themselves. It means you have thought it was more important to read a story, cook together and draw pictures than mop, dust and iron. It means you have dumped your stuff on the bench so you could get dinner ready to eat together at 6pm and listen to the readers beforehand. It means that you have other important things to do than cleaning.

I really like Kathy Walker and her approach to parenting but like a newborn baby, sometimes you have to do what works for you. Having said that, I recommend reading this book if you have preschool and primary aged children. There is a big section on starting school and some of the stages associated with this new learning curve. Walker is practical and in touch with Australian parents and indeed very supportive of this full time role.

I avoid parenting blogs because my free time is time for me as an individual and I limit myself to reading one parenting book a year. I wasn’t going to buy this book and loaned it from the kinder. However, my daughter left her open water bottle in the front seat next to Walker’s book and let’s just say there wasn’t much reflective listening from me…but you’re welcome to borrow it.