I loooove buying presents for my kids. As in, I’ll cheerfully buy presents in June (like budget experts tell you to), and then continue buying presents for the entire rest of the year (which budget experts do not recommend). Having said that, we don’t do stocking presents in our house, and likely never will. IContinue reading “Gift Guide for Ages 3-6ish”
Category Archives: With a list
Books, Food, and the Dangers of Combining the Two
I’ve hurt my back (again) so for the last two days I haven’t been able to do much. I wasn’t even sure I was okay to drive, so yesterday my partner Chris worked from home, and today my father-in-law brought the kids home after school. Today was a whole lot better than yesterday, pain-wise, andContinue reading “Books, Food, and the Dangers of Combining the Two”
2011 Top Ten Awesomenesses
Hot air balloon World Map of Food Horseriding Zombie Walk Steam Train 6. Beach (for our second honeymoon/pre-emptive babymoon) and sandcastle Skyfire Young Symphonists Get pregnant Getting rescued by firemen was cool too. 2011 was somewhat dominated by pregnancy and pregnancy-related illness, but there were a few other really cool things going on: I wrote andContinue reading “2011 Top Ten Awesomenesses”
Christmas on the interwebs
Christmas and New Year’s Day are two of the slowest and dullest days on the internet each year, so I’ve prepared three special blog entries just for you. Christmas Eve: Something special from the watery depths (tentacles most definitely included). Christmas Day: Top ten awesomenesses of 2011 (it turns out my year wasn’t nearly asContinue reading “Christmas on the interwebs”
Top Ten FREE Awesomenesses
It’s finally here! The ultimate awesomenesses for my poverty-striken peeps. I’ve marked with an asterisk those I think are worth clicking on (either for stylish writing or for pictures). And without further ado. . . 10. Feed ducks 9. Blob/No Plans 8. Join the Library and Read Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan trilogy* 7. Lord of theContinue reading “Top Ten FREE Awesomenesses”
Top Ten Awesome Pics
Here they are, the pictures that in my opinion are the most peculiar/troublesome/unique/spectacular from the year of Daily Awesomeness. A few also appear in the other top ten lists. I’ve marked with an asterisk those that are attached to well-written or interesting blog articles, and pointed out for your benefit when the awesomeness in questionContinue reading “Top Ten Awesome Pics”
Top Ten Awesomenesses
I’ve now sorted ALL 365 awesomenesses into three top tens – the top ten that cost money, the top ten that are free, and the top ten pictures from the year. Here’s the first list, leading up to my personal favourite. 10. Home Made Lemonade – with SCIENCE! Cost: Perhaps $10 for lemons, sugar, and the secretContinue reading “Top Ten Awesomenesses”
S#12: Healing Stones
My mission today was to go to “one of those hippy shops” and buy “something weird.” I bought a pack of “Mystic East” Frangipani incense sticks that apparently “improves the concentration of the mind for meditation and prayer”. I decided, by way of experiment, to see if burning fangipani incense helped me remember more detailsContinue reading “S#12: Healing Stones”
#252: Tattoo War
Ever woken up on New Year’s day with a champagne headache and half a dozen pirate tattoos? I know I have. It started off so civilised. I put a pretty thing on my sister’s ankle. I put another on the arm of She Who Must Not Be Named*. CJ “volunteered” for a pirate flag. And thenContinue reading “#252: Tattoo War”
#248: Heifer, anyone?
For today’s awesomeness, I joined literary-stuff blogger http://blog.nathanbransford.com/ who is pledging $1 for every comment on his blog, giving it to the charity http://www.heifer.org/. Any charity that gives people a goat* is one I like. I’ll be giving $1 for every blog comment from this instant until Christmas Eve (up to $500, to be paid inContinue reading “#248: Heifer, anyone?”
S#36: Metal Green Thumb
My mission was to get a weird plant – “a deadly nightshade or venus flytrap or sarracenia or nepenthes”. I got this: Look, I admit it. The plant is downright pretty. I’m not very good at this heavy metal thing (despite my pirate credentials). But let’s take a closer look. I’ve repotted it and putContinue reading “S#36: Metal Green Thumb”
#222: Kidnap Your Date
You know it’s gonna be a good date when you take your partner in the car looking like this: I took a circuitous path to the secret location, and CJ was soon lost. My cunning plan was to walk him onto a certain island at just the right time, leaving the blindfold on until a certain sound happened,Continue reading “#222: Kidnap Your Date”
S#26: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
If the rain in Canberra continues much longer, we’ll all drown. The sky is bleak and the wind is cold. So much for Spring. All my instincts are telling me to get back into bed, avoid all possibility of exercise, and eat nothing but chocolate. But I won’t. The next-best option is sitting on theContinue reading “S#26: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”
S#55: Make Music
Imagine the scene: You’re at school camp and have eaten the food, but you and your friends are all still at the table, nursing your orange cordials and wondering how best to mess with the teachers without leaving your chairs. Someone starts tapping out a rhythm on their upturned cup. They teach the person nextContinue reading “S#55: Make Music”
#187: What’s in the box? Part 1
Some are born awesome. Some achieve awesome. And some have awesome thrust upon ’em.* My mum likes to be mysterious. She sent me an email a few days ago saying she’d “had an idea” and I should “drop in so we could talk about it”. Things are a little crazy at the moment, so IContinue reading “#187: What’s in the box? Part 1”
#175: Was it REALLY that bad?*
My brother is almost two years older than me. I have many childhood memories of sitting around bored, begging him to play “Risk” with me, and then enduring a long and torturous defeat. And then repeating the whole familiar pattern, over and over and over. There are two curious things about these memories. First isContinue reading “#175: Was it REALLY that bad?*”
#172: Macabre Expression of Love
Cast your minds back, if you will, to the year 2007. It was a gentler time, when global warming was only just invented and Kevin Rudd was super exciting. It was a time when CJ and Louise fell in love. (Well, CJ did. I was WAY ahead of the times.) To celebrate the fact thatContinue reading “#172: Macabre Expression of Love”
#78: New job
This entry is PG for moderately bad swearing (at the end). One of the best (and worst) things about my day job – private tutoring – is that things are constantly getting shuffled around. I’m about to take on some new students, so I get all the thrills and spills of a new job withoutContinue reading “#78: New job”
#170: Win a blog award
Yesterday I wandered past http://emmylennevald.blogspot.com/ and was delighted to see my own blog on the receiving end of the Versatile Blogger Awards. This award is one bloggers give each other, which makes it a special kind of award (the kind that doesn’t pay, but that’s neither here nor there). Rule 1: Thank the person who gaveContinue reading “#170: Win a blog award”
S#29: Write to your idols
In preparation for the writing festival on the weekend, I visited the websites of most of the guest authors, and picked the five books that looked most suited to my taste – “The Ruby Talisman” by Belinda Murrell (about a modern girl who wakes up one morning next to her great-grea-great grandmother just as the FrenchContinue reading “S#29: Write to your idols”