motivating

I really liked this meditation on quitting smoking, and its implications for quitting other things. Freedom from addiction. A nice thought.

I couldn't quite find the right little dragon though.

You'd think after not posting for a while I'd be desperate to post. But I've been reading homework too much to think of anything other than insincere comments to put on them.

You'll all be happy to know that a colleague in a certain Urban Private Grinds type establishment vouches for her privileged teenage students and said that in the main they're all nice kids.

I'm glad, after the reports from FMC and Axel - hussies, Fatmammycat called them,giving me a sudden vision of a burn orange, twi-lit Dublin, overrun not by Zombies, but by Hussies, a walking dead Krew of bitchy orange girls, with straightened and highlit blonde hair, false nails and eyelashes, treading softly in Ugg boots, wobbling in fuck-me heels, closer, ever closer, to pub near you.

What kills them? Well, beheading, obviously. But any more inventive suggestions about a way to convert all these teens back to normal people? People from the days before fake tan, when Irish women had nice chestnut hair, and creamy (well, ok, sometimes ruddy) skin. I don't know what else we had going for us though. We are a slightly lumpen people. I'll give you the luscious titian locks and green eyed look, the chestnut curls and freckles, the rude health - but it's a FRACTION of the community who can get away with such Darby O Gillisms, so many of us are thick armed heifer types, with child bearing hips and rosy complexions. Maybe.

I was listening to Ray D'Arcy one day, and someone asked what Irish women looked like, pre tan and highlights - the question was posed to Mairead Farrell, who took a little offence, retorting, 'What did Irish women look like before? BET DOWN'.

Perhaps, there's a grain of truth in that.

But still. When will the over produced look go away. When will women just look natural again? It's time enough, please - I want to be able to go on being scruffy without having to feel ... scruffy.

Chocolate Cheesecake Breakdown

If I were to have a breakdown
It would be after midnight, in Tesco
Crouched in the dessert aisle
Shaky in my stained and manky hoodie
Scooping in handfuls of Tesco Chocolate Cheesecake
Tears mingling with the chocolate ring around my mouth

new order

I'm going to try something new. Nothing is working the way I'm doing it, I'm flailing along, and everyone's miserable, most of all me.

So as of tomorrow, I'm going to give up on relaxing. Doing what my lazy habits dictate. I will WORK, and when not working I will ORGANISE, TIDY or COOK and when not doing that, I will devote creative ATTENTION to my children. I'm not going to attempt to go out anymore unless strictly necessary, and thus avoid the horrible stress and rows of trying to get the kids to bed and out of the house so I'm less than two hours late. And resentful, so resentful of Axel, who leaves the house at 4,30 pm on the day of a night out and returns at 4.30am, then sleeps in til 1pm and snoozes on the sofa for much of the day.

Perhaps I'll conquer the cluttered dusty mess of the house, and feel less stagnant and allergic. Perhaps Olivia will stop screaming and bitching at me constantly. And I won't be shouting at her for it all day. Perhaps Bodhi will be less hungry and relax a bit more.

Perhaps Axel will be less morose and irritable and pissed off all the time.

Perhaps I'll feel less like failure, less like sobbing all the time.

So I'm off to try it for a week, to see if it changes my life. Byee!

yeurgg

Some pretty Australian. Not me.If this was me, I'd be more cheerful.


I feel crap. Bodhi's cold has got me. No wonder he's been in bad form. I'm congested and sneezing, with a promise of worse to come, my eyes are prickling and itching, I feel heavy headed, sleepy. Cooking dinner tonight was a chore. I didn't think I'd get through it. I had to wake Axel up and ask him to lay the table and take charge of Bodhi, who wanted to be in my arms the whole time. Cooking, thoughts about being a family who cook dinner together, or one who clears and sets the tale while the other cooks, were bringing tear to my eyes. I burnt myself twice. And then I felt too weary to eat. Using chopsticks was painful, I had to swap for a fork!

I had every intention of working tonight, I've just got a big load of corrections, but I've just got Olivia to bed(it remains to be seen whether she'll stay there) , after the obligatory tantrum, by throwing Oreos in the bin, one for each misdemeanor, it's 9pm now, and I know I'll get through an essay and a half before my eyes get scratchy and fuzzy, my head starts to wobble and jerk forward on my neck, and I blear off into half dreams while scanning words I can't actually read.

So fuck it. Sofa, blanket, a whiny blog post no one's going to read because it's Friday and they're all out. Where do you get the edergy? Snurfle. The sofa and blanket feel remarkably good to me right now.

Happy Black President Day

I know a million other people have said it earlier and better than me, but I was happy to tell my daughter that there was a black president elected in the States today, and what it means for the US.

This is historic, in terms of change and growth. I fear for him, though, and I salute his bravery, and that of his family.

I hope this election sends a different message to the world about America and its intentions (though that may be a bit optimistic). A different one than two dodgy elections of GWB, anyway.

I can confess something now - I voted against GW twice, to no avail, but I didn't actually vote this time. Out of laziness, basically. And because I'm registered in California and I was pretty certain he'd get in there, and my one vote wouldn't tip any scales. It's a weird system.

I do feel guilty (go on, feel free to heap on the outrage) but in the end it was ok.

A happy day.

Holy Incredible Cake Art Batman

Or Holy Crap, is what I said when I saw it. I know I like cake making, but this process is facinating. The art of it! Watching has a nice, nostalgic, Tony Hart sort of feel too.
Here's the new book, if anyone's feeling cake-artistic.

Predestination

A car conversation, concerning Olivia's naughty exploits:

'God makes people do things. God made me do it! It wasn't me, it was God'

And another car monologue:

God has a big fork. He scoops people up with his Big Fork. GOD EATS PEOPLE!

battered idiot

Instruments of Self Torture

Trying to get ready to go out is so taxing these days, that after last night I'm tempted not to go out anymore til they're both older. I think it would be easier, on balance. Friendship and face to face communication is over rated, right?

I'm torn about whether to post it or not, and share my domestic and parenting failures and mismanagement with the world. I'm shading towards not. It's too depressing. Suffice it to say that David Coleman would have had a footage gathering field day in my house last night. And I got to the pub at ten, and had to leave shortly after twelve. Not even as long as a playdate.

Early in the evening I had a mishap. I'll recount the story because it will no doubt amuse.

I was making promised cupcakes for my friend's birthday - it was meant to be at the end of September, but the night before she got food poisoning at the POWERSCOURT SPA restaurant, and was vomiting for 12 hours, which put paid to her night out. And expensive way to wreck a birthday, her mum said.

So, more baking post Halloween over baking bonanza - of course I thought I'd got everything I needed but of course I'd forgotten the sugar icing sugar, butter, needed fresh strawberries ... so by the time I"d recovered from the night of doctor visits and vomit duty, it was late and I was making cupcakes and icing and dinner all at the same time. Sometimes Bodhi is ok with the electric whisk, and makes rrrr noises, sometimes he screams hysterically and hugs my legs... so with a combination of that, progress was stop and start.

Then, after burning burgers a bit, I did a Stupid Thing. Sometimes my brain turns off. Like the time I was taking baked potatoes out of the oven, someone had put a table knife through them to get them to cook quicker. I picked one out carefully with a tea towel, checked it wasn't ready, then picked it up by the knife handle. The weird thing was, because I was just picking up a knife, my brain couldn't work out where the pain was coming from, so I held it for a bit before I put it down. Ow.

Same thing last night. A duh moment. I was beating the icing on high, when I bent down to the bowl to gauge the flavour by sniffing the icing icing. BANG my hair was caught in the whirring whisks and pulled right in to the machine, the paddles bashing away on high speed against my forehead, right above my eye, noise and pain and confusion. It was all so fast and unexpected (duh, right, what did I expect?) that rather than just turn it off, all I could do was panic and scream in a humiliatingly girlie fashion, with poor Bodhi screaming and crying in terror in the high chair beside me. Thankfully, I think one of the whisks came out, along with a large chunk of hair, leaving me shaken and bruised and stinging, a little traumatised but able to comfort the baby and carry on. I.am.a.twat.

Blood, sweat and cupcakes, eh?

So our party went with a swing. Plenty of kids, about three times too much food. I've already breakfasted on rice crispie treats. And more. And I'm making strawberry cupcakes for a friend's birthday tonight.

Amusingly, ironically, moronically? Olivia over did it last night, and woke up with agonising stomach pains. She was screaming, and woke Bodhi, who joined in the screaming. I gave her a remedy and the screaming stopped, but she was still insisting they were getting worse. She looked like she was settling back down but was still insistent that she was in agony. I'd recently used up the bottle of Calpol I bought for her as a teething baby, so I couldn't recourse to that. Ugh. Because she's been complaining of stomach pain for the last long time, I figured maybe we should go to the doctor. Against my better judgement. I wanted to sit, and wait and see what the remedy did, repeat the dose, but she wasn't co operative. She got teary and insisted she was ok after I got her dressed, but that was just doctor fear. Getting into the car she said her heart was beating so hard - it turns out she heard me tell my MIL (who came to look after Bodhi) that I was dropping her down to the doctor, and she thought I said dropping her off. I didn't realise til we were half way there, and she asked me would she have to stay long. Oh, the heartbreak of children's unspoken fears. The little tentative questions. I remember being at the zoo when my brother was small. He saw a beautiful blue and yellow feather in a little fenced off grassy bit. My father told him to jump in and get it. He stopped half way over the little railing, and looked up, asking 'there's nothing dangerous in here, is there?' as if we were sending him in with tigers. But he was almost in before he checked, despite his worries. It kills me. The uncertainty, the unassertiveness of learning your way round the world. And the worst thing is, that they don't know how fallible we adults are.

Though in this case, I was stupid, I should have sat it out. Seventy euro to be told I could give her some Calpol. Still, it wasn't appendicitis, I suppose it was worth ascertaining that. But groan. And as I didn't want to get into the remedy thing, I had this cheerful child without any evident pain in the surgery, the yawning doctor no doubt thinking I have Munchausen's Syndrome or something.

So of course Bodhi was up half the night. Especially after Olivia finally vomited the over indulgence all over her bed, and I had to get up and change everything, with Bodhi tagging round after me, wailing.

Still, I got half an hour or so of sitting happy with my cheese puffs and Stargate, letting the success of the day wash around me and relaxing.

We went trick or treating afterwards, Bodhi saw fireworks and said Ohhhhhh to them, and we went to the neighbours and Olivia did her 'Five Little Pumpkins' poem, with actions, at every door step - beautifully. Someone gave Bodhi a mini Moro and he held it clutched in his fist, triumphant, all the way home and beyond.