We don't have to live on the streets

The Postie and I signed our lives away with a letting agency on our new flat, a sunny three bedroom top flat in a suburb I've never lived in before. It is many miles away from Aro Valley or Newtown or Mt Victoria where I've spent most of my Wellington life, but that's what you get when you have a kid and you want room to swing the cat, and the kid at the same time even. Luckily, Ms Bramwell is moving in with some pals just around the corner from us, and it's on a good bus line not far from Brooklyn, so it's not like I'm moving to Tawa or J'ville or something. I apologise to those of you who DO live in those suburbs, but they're not for me...

Anyway, I am filled with all sorts of domestic ambitions at the moment, even though I still seem unable to complete my weekly lists. I am, for the first time, actually a little excited about the prospect of putting the baby's room together, something I had not thought even a tiny bit about until now. I thought that was for those wealthy mums who buy Nature Baby and new merino clothes for their children at vast expense. Don't worry, I'm not going to paint the room pink or blue or anything like that, I just want to get things ready. I have this wonderful Children's Encyclopaedia from the 1960s that I want to turn into posters - pages like 'children from around the world' and 'animals we love' etc. I've also got this beautiful old New Zealand map to put up in there, because I love maps and remember clearly staring at them as a child memorising where all the countries fitted together, dreaming of where I would go when I was big enough. Most of all, I will be able to start hanging up and putting in drawers all the clothes that are coming our way from Sweeney, the grandparents, and various kind folks who have made things for the kid. And all the books I get from the review box at work will finally have somewhere to go.

Ok, so this week's list:

• do yoga
• send Trade Me items to auction winners
• make a cake as it's my turn to bake for the parents at Ronald McDonald house and last time I was rostered on, I burnt my cup cakes
• clean out the car *yawn*
• update my clippings book dating back to June 2006 *urgh*
• send cute fabric to Helen and Melissa
• do some more work on the diary I am making for Bramwell *fun*

Craft 2.0

About time I posted about Craft 2.0. I shared a table with Jo Hubris whose zines had me blushing behind my earrings, and got to catch up witha few crafty types. And I must say, the wedges at the cafe there may take hours to come out of the kitchen, but they sure are tasty ...

Here's my stall:

Here's the cards I sold:

Here's some of my Sparrow & Tui glittering goodies:

I was also lucky enough to get these lovely things from Scrappers (rattle and bib) and Baibin (sweet bunny) for my bottom drawer to go with the jacket and hat Granny Bramwell made for Tiny. Thank you so much, ladies.

Five for Friday

1. Tiny was extremely rambunctious this morning, and I am wondering if I am going to have an advanced baby, because according to all the books and everything, I'm not meant to be able to feel Tiny for another two weeks. Perhaps it's not Tiny at all, but one of raft of mysterious poppings in my abdominal area that just happen to feel like miniature feet nudging against my organs.

2. Going out with the Postie tonight to see Eagle vs Shark. Like a date. It'll be the first Friday night I've been out after work in months. Then I will be going home to watch Project Runway and imagine that I will be in bed by 9pm. Rock on.

3. I'm waiting for my sister to call and tell me her and Sweeney bambini are downstairs in the cafe. He's going to accompany me to coffee with Sue who is my translator for a story I am doing about The Cult of the Amateur. I haven't seen Sweeney since before going to Noosa, and miss his nerdy laugh. For one of his birthdays, I'm going to get him a pocket protector.

4. My colleague Bess, the lifestyle section editor, gave me a lipstick that came in from some PR company the other day, and though the applicator looks like a nipple shield, I adore it. It's a Maybelline something or other. I reapply often. Far more often than is necessary. My lips look GLOR-ious.

5. It occurred to me last night that when the Postie's sister gets married next year, we'll be parents. There'll be a family photo with Postie and Child. How freakin' weird.

This week I am mainly doing chores I didn't do last week

Last week was a blur of beads, cardboard and little sticky bits of children's books. Yes, getting my stuff together for Craft 2.0 took a little longer than I anticipated, and the energy I had while in Noosa evaporated as soon as I made the list, so there are a lot of jobs undone. I am mentally making a list of all the things I have to get done before Tiny becomes Wailing Baby, so will try to knock off a few of these a week. Last night was totally, like, cleaning everything in my room. I even vacuumed the insides of my drawers. I have a big freight box in my room slowly filling with stuff I will sell or give away - I am rather dreading the hours it will take to put lots of it on trademe. And we haven't even started with all the stuff I have stored under the house. Ye gods.

Anyway, this week's jobs include:
do yoga
put a bunch of stuff on trade me in anticipation of moving house
find somewhere to live
visit Jill who I haven't seen for AGES
do something amazing with the fruit and pumpkin we got in the Wairarapa three weeks ago
clean out the car *yawn*
do some more work on Sween's Christmas present *yippee*
update my clippings book dating back to June 2006 *urgh*
make Sweeney's Saturday with his Aunty Kimpy a really, really good time *wicked!*
send cute fabric to Helen and Melissa
do some more work on the diary I am making for Bramwell

In other news, I am having my 20-week scan on September 10. We'll be finding out if Tiny is a missus or mister. So until then, thought a little sweepstake was in order. What do you think, girl or boy? So far I have been keen on a boy, but after reading this this week, I think welcoming a little girl into our whanau would be choice too.

Isn't it ironic?

I've just started work on a story based on a book called "The Cult of the Amateur". It's about how the Web 2.0 revolution - that's blogging, YouTube-ing, Wiki-ing, MySpace-ing etc is undermining those of us 'professionals' who bring you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth through the mainstream media. Here's a snippet:

I call it the great seduction. The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of
bringing more truth to more people - more depth of information, more global
perspectives, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is
all a smokescreen. What the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is
superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis,
shrill opinion rather than considered judgement. The information business is
being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million
bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.

It's ironic I should be writing this post, as I'm contributing to the 'noise', but at the same time, I'm an actual real live journalist discussing something I hope will prompt informed debate. It's also ironic that Mr Andrew Keen, the book's author, has a blog called www.cultoftheamateur.com and hosts a podcast - two things he argues are bringing about the end of "the very traditional institutions that have helped to create out news, our music, our literature, our television shows, and our movies."

So far it's an interesting read and I urge you to check out his blog to see what he's talking about. While I disagree with some of his arguments - I take exception to being called a monkey banging away on a typewriter and I couldn't care less that downloading is hurting the pockets of Hollywood executives - I do defend my skills as an objective-as-I-can-be journalist. There is a lot of crap out there in blogland, there's also a lot of good. I'm looking forward to getting into the heart of this book and talking to blog-Gods like Russell Brown and t'others. And will be making a lot of noise about it.

This week I am mainly ...

For the second week (last week didn't count, I was on holiday) I am going to set myself some achievable goals to get things done. They may seem like piddling tasks to many of you, but morning sickness has had me incapacitated for anything but sleeping and dragging myself around in a hunched over shape for so long, I'm loathe to take on anything so gruelling as what normal people do. So, world, here are my tasks for this week:

• do yoga
• put a bunch of stuff on trade me in anticipation of moving house in a month or so
• cull my wardrobe and bookshelves *sob* in order to do that
• make some Sparrow & Tui stock for this weekend's Craft 2.0, get my packaging together
• do something amazing with the fruit and pumpkin we got in the Wairarapa two weeks ago
• write to the Postie's parents
• finish my Noosa travel piece
• finish my organics story
• get up to date with bills, insurance claims, organise my life
• clean out the car - the detritus from the last craft fair is still in there
• babysit Sweeney on Saturday night
• do some more work on Sween's Christmas present
• visit my friend Rose who I haven't seen since I got back from Hamilton over a year ago
• make something delicious for pot luck dinner on Sunday

It's all go. So exciting. Can't wait to do the bills. Really. It'll be SO fun.

Noosa is awesome

Warm squeaky sand, hibiscus flowers on the surface of the pool, a kookaburra wake up call at 5.37am, the eternal fruitless scanning for koalas, whirring lorikeet wings, silent black flying foxes fleeing in their hundreds across the river to roost, continual surprise at the expanse of white belly protruding from my body, naked stocky men at a nudist beach staring aimlessly at the sand like cows in a field, the postie perfecting his surfing stance, brush turkeys pecking at our lunchbox, a growing collection of freckles on my legs, eating breakfast on the deck doing the sudoku in the paper, wearing jandals, kayaking through a swarm of stingrays, lying in the afternoon sun with a hat over my face, donut king, herons turning the gum trees white, kids playing aussie rules, an air conditioned corner dairy with a man who called me doll, swimming togs and towels drying on the deck, fresh pineapple for breakfast.

New week's resolutions

After homeperm, I am going to make weekly resolutions for myself to kick myself up the bum. I've been a lazy-assed blob of something since getting knocked up, but am feeling better, well, kinda of content with things anyway, so figured now was a good time for a new leaf ...

This week I will:

• make the Postie a nice dinner and do all the dishes
• pack for Noosa
• do some more work on Sweeney's Christmas present
• make thank you cards for a few lucky sots
• meet all my deadlines without panicking
• eat a proper breakfast not made up of crackers and tea
• do some yoga
• get my car warranted

How exciting is that? I live on the edge, man.

No comment!

A few months ago, someone commented on a post of mine about my flatmate and journalist extraordinaire Chris Bramwell and the TV show she hosted called Nailed Sorted Exposed. I was incensed that someone should make a personal attack on a friend of mine on my blog, and I said so in my response to that person. After all it's my blog and my rules apply.

Anyhoo, one of my every-now-and-then reads is The Dirtsailor's Observations - a blog kept by a member of the US military who recently 'served' in Afghanistan. I enjoyed his honest posts about being in the military, about being sent home to the States and others' attitudes towards him. I didn't often agree with his world view (America was delcared war on on September 11 etc) and was interested to learn about people who hold that view. However, recently he posted something that really made my spine tingle with fear and stress, like reading about wee Nia Glassie in Starship hospital. I posted a comment with an opposing view to his, but comments on his blog only appear if he wants them to, and so far, it hasn't appeared.

So my comment goes unacknowledged - which is his right, it's his blog after all isn't it? But it's made me pretty sad. It's almost like he doesn't want to acknowledge a different point of view from his exists. And isn't this one of the problems that got us in the situation with climate change, Iraq etc, that the world finds itself in? Call me a liberal moron, but am I wrong about this?