Travel 101: Don’t be fooled into thinking Australia is close to anywhere

September 23, 2015 by 11 Comments

When you are mid flight between Sydney and  Honolulu you would be forgiven for thinking you may never sleep or smile again. You are also forgiven for trying not to think of ways to extract revenge on the people who assured you it’s not a long flight. Leaving Australia is always a long flight. When your flight departs at 10:30pm and you are exhausted and panicked about the fact that you’re going to go days without a bed and a shower it’s worse.

Trying to sleep in a seated position with strangers as far as the eye can see is never easy. Add to that the fact that you dressed for airport and not for airplane and then to top it all off you are flying with a teenager who is known far and wide for his ability to talk continuously. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Featured, Travel Tagged With:

The 8 podcasts you want to listen to

September 21, 2015 by 16 Comments

“You can no longer read in the bath” my doctor said, his words ripping through my very soul. “you’re straining your neck and that’s what’s causing that pain and tingling down your arm”.

There would have been a time in my life where I would have ignored him and taken all the codeine with a glass of red wine to relax my neck and form an even stronger addiction to my bath. But because I’m such a mature well-balanced woman I developed another addiction instead – the podcast. Listening in the bath allowed me to continue to soak in words and water. Perfect.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured

To the anxiety beast in my head…

September 17, 2015 by 17 Comments

anxiety beastMy anxiety is a tricky beast. It’s aware I would never invite it in so it just appears and then stabs me  repeatedly in the chest area to remind me of its existence.

My anxiety beast loves change almost as much as I hate it. Whenever there is a slight whiff of change in the air he swoops in and attaches himself to me like an iron filing to a magnet. Or a parasite to my flesh.

It’s that capacity to sense and swoop in on change that makes sure my anxiety knocks out any excitement I may have before it has a chance to express itself. Picture my head as a 3 litre container – anxiety is 4 litres and takes up all the space spilling over and not allowing the other emotions any light or space. It’s odd how I can see that objectively but I can’t stop it from happening. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Featured, My Life Tagged With:

Let’s change ALL the supermarket shopping rules

September 12, 2015 by 10 Comments

Go home old peopleYou’ll be thrilled to know that a delightful woman by the name of Beverly Macca has taken the time to write to her local newspaper. I know nothing about Beverly other than she works from nine to five so she is very busy and important. Mind you after reading her letter I also know that she’s a wee bit rude.

But still, she took time out from her very busy life to write to the Editor of The Herald so clearly something was niggling her– and I get it, her letter was about supermarket shopping which is a highly critical event.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Current Affairs, Featured Tagged With:

There’s a butterfly in my email

September 10, 2015 by 3 Comments

I’m not the kind of person who likes practical jokes, in fact I hate them. I think Australia’s Funniest Home Videos is cruel and I get very uncomfortable when people are being pranked– even if everyone is aware it’s a joke. I think I get it from my mother who once told me that when she was a little girl and she used to eat a soft-boiled egg for breakfast her dad would turn the eaten egg over and tell her that she hadn’t started yet. She cried. I completely get where she came from.

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Filed Under: Featured, Funny

Ever posted something on Facebook that you regret?

September 2, 2015 by 2 Comments

Just last week it was reported that Facebook had one billion active users in a day. One billion people logged onto a social media platform to catch up with family and friends, play Candy Crush or connect in some other way. It’s become so much a way of life that I’m guessing a high percentage of those people never even thought about the fact that they were on Facebook – they were merely online doing what they do.

Facebook has become the megaphone that allows us to share our thoughts. It’s no longer just the place you go to when you want to stalk your first boyfriend (maybe that was just my reason for joining). We’ve become so comfortable with talking online and with the way Facebook projects what we’re saying that sometime we forget to censor what we are thinking.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Featured, Parenting Tagged With: , ,

Do you have any idea how lucky you are?

August 31, 2015 by 6 Comments

“I know mum, I know. You remind me every day” my son muttered as I exclaimed how lucky we were. I thought I was muttering under my breath, as I am want to do, but turns out I was expressing myself out loud.

The words escaped my mouth out loud because my brain couldn’t contain anymore. We were eating breakfast and the news was on. We had just heard the horrific story that more than 70 people had been found dead in the back of a truck. 70 people. The news reported them as asylum seekers. I translated that internally to people, because seeking asylum was only part of their journey.

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Filed Under: Featured Tagged With:

The day the storm took away my lifeline

August 26, 2015 by

after the stormI woke up the morning after the storms to a disaster that the SES could not help. My internet was down. I spoke to a machine at Bigpond and then a woman in India who confirmed that the cables were damaged in the storm and would be not be fixed till the following day at 6pm at the latest. Two whole days without internet. This loosely translates to two days without oxygen for me.

I am not proud to say that I don’t know how to live without internet. How was I even supposed to phone Bigpond to confirm the calamity if I couldn’t look up their number? [Read more…]

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The meal that was two weeks in the making

August 24, 2015 by 4 Comments

Today I entered a level of cooking prep that I hadn’t gone to before. Understanding that I regularly cook for big groups of people (thanks extended family) and I cook daily for a fussy vegetarian (myself) , a carb–avoiding man (my husband) and a growing teenager (my son) , I am well versed with cooking prep.

But today was different. I was cooking for a family who have had some difficult times lately. Someone at Little Pencil’s school has put a roster together for people who want to help to prepare a meal to ensure there is one thing less to worry about for a while.

The roster was a very well organised, online schedule where you could choose the date that suited you best and then insert the meal you would be providing with your name next to that date.

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Filed Under: Featured, Food Tagged With:

This is not what happened when I went to school

August 20, 2015 by 5 Comments

electiveYesterday I went off to a school meeting with all the enthusiasm I could muster for doing anything which means leaving my bed,  that is – none at all. The meeting was to find out more about elective subject choices for Year 9 students and frankly I thought I would struggle to find a more boring basis for calling the parents together.

Turns out I was thinking about my subject choices when I was back at school in the olden days – a decade fondly referred to as the 80’s.

So as my my son dragged me off to listen to a man in a suit talk about elective geography I had my phone at the ready to check Twitter when he started to rattle off about mountain ranges and rock formations. I thought that when he got to cloud formations I might excuse myself for an urgent bathroom run. I was prepared*. Except I wasn’t.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: ,
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