narrating kayoz

Eliane loves to play with shells. She can anthropomorphise anything, so many of our shells are named. 

There is one shell (which she’s named Spiral), which was given to me when I was 12, by a secret supporter. 

I was on a church youth camp (I went via the ISCF (Inter School Christian Fellowship) group at school, since I wasn’t yet a church goer at that point), and we had a thing (game?) called Angels and Mortals. Everyone had an angel and everyone was an angel for someone else, but the idea was to keep who you were an angel to absolutely secret. 

I have played similar games in other camps later in highschool, but I’m not sure it was ever so effectively kept secret as it was on this one. 

Anyway, my angel left this shell on my pillow one day over that weekend camp. Possibly with a little note, I don’t remember. 

I have kept it ever since. 

I ask myself why. I mean, sentimental value, obviously. But I have no idea who the person was who gave it to me. I know whoever it was left a few other little offerings, including, I think, a card at the end. I don’t remember what the card said, but I presume it wished me well. 

What’s more, I don’t actually remember anyone from that camp, except the teacher from my school who ran the ISCF, and I *think* there was another teacher from my school who attended too, although I can’t remember his name or face. 

But somehow, the memory of some unknown person taking such care of me, watching over me and trying to make me feel special, is still special today. 

One of the things I love about Canberra winters is:

One of the things I love about Canberra winters is the sunshine. So that although we have frosty mornings, and 11 degree rainy days like Monday of this week, we have gorgeous sunny days more often than not.

Right now Eliane is playing out on the deck, splashing with some leftover rainwater she found in a saucepan, picking "her chives" (she says they're hers), spinning around and generally having fun.

I have the other two off sick (Mikaela's just had chicken pox, and Liam's had the coughing bug going around - actually I think Mikaela had that too), but they are outside in the sun now too, and will be back at school tomorrow.

School holidays start next week, and I am genuinely looking forward to them. Sleep ins, no lunches to prepare, lots of Lego and play dough, probably, and hopefully a lot more days like this one.

Me and my colon and my empty stomach

I've been meaning to write a post about how this year so far has been filled with accidents and illness (right now Liam has a sprained ankle and Mikaela is sick with a virus that's been going around at school and work).

And, I've been meaning to write about the fact that I've taken a redundancy from my public service job, and as of today am officially self-employed. Though without an income to show for it yet. More on that another time however.

Because actually, today I am just hungry.

I am on the "clear liquids only" diet today, in prep for a colonoscopy tomorrow.

And despite having nothing to eat all day, I have had the pleasure of eating pretend muffins made for me by Eliane. Three is not a highly empathic age.

Not to mention having prepared dinner for the rest of 'em (Chris didn't get home from work until late, or I would've made him do it!). While starving.

Now it is late at night, and I am going to bed, still hungry, to get up and continue on clear liquids (combined with other nasty colon cleansing prep, which started this afternoon), until 10, when it switches to nil by mouth.

Ah the joys of modern medicine.

Of course, I'll be grateful to it if it saves my life, and am grateful to it for intervening in the lives of various other family members (which is why I'm having the colonoscopy - family history, not personal symptoms), however painfully and miserably. But in the mean time.

I. Am. Hungry!

The Car Crash

I was in a car accident last week, and this week I am struggling.

I think it's partly because I'm not sleeping well, mostly due to injuries. Nothing major at all, just bruising, maybe some muscle strains, but enough to ache at night and make it difficult to get comfortable. Also my left hand (which is my mousing hand) is the most injured, and since my job is all on computers, it does make working for long periods painful.

But more than that I am just feeling very flat most of the time, which again, may be mostly due to being tired, or maybe is also the after affects of the car crash. Or maybe I'm overthinking things.  Either way I decided it was time to write the whole thing out, even though I don't have any profound observations to make.

What happened was that I was driving straight down a suburban street (a 60KM zone), and someone coming up the street in the other direction took a right turn in front of me. He said he didn't see me, he just focused on the car behind me. I remember looking in my rear mirror right beforehand and she was more towards the middle of the road than I was (I was planning to turn left at the following intersection). So I guess that's why.

I swerved, so I hit with the front passenger corner of the car, which was probably better than straight on. Anyway, the car was a complete loss, but no one was seriously injured. 

All three kids were in the back, Liam ended up with a slight bruise to his shoulder from his seat belt (thanks to the booster seat it wasn't across his neck), and the girls don't even have that. 

As far as I'm aware the other guy wasn't hurt either, though its perfectly possible he had bruises and muscle strains too - I wasn't even aware of most of mine until the end of the day, aside from the massive swelling of my left hand. But I was more focused on the kids' welfare really,  and so, to an extent, was he. He was certainly also very shaken and clearly felt absolutely awful about the whole thing.

We were all pretty shaken. Chris was away at the time, overseas, which rather sucked, but I'm lucky that my wonderful mum lives nearby, so she came and picked us up to come home, and ran us around to the doctor later.

I'm also lucky to have wonderful friends, many of whom offered to help out or visit, and one of whom even took Mikaela to school and back the next day, which was completely out of her way. (Liam happily took the bus). 

And I'm thankful for the kindness of strangers. There were two women in the two vehicles behind me, who stopped, called the police and took care of the children for me.

One of them just stood with her arms around Mikaela (it was freezing cold - someone said minus two degrees Celsius) and the other picked up Eliane, and someone else who stopped, I think, gave her a large warm fluoro yellow jacket to cover her. She must have stood there holding Elli for 20 or 30 minutes I think. At one point someone - possibly one of the fireys - came over to swap the jacket for his, because the first guy had to go. And then a women came out across the road with two blankets to wrap up the other kids.

The other guy was driving a ute, and I think the whole tray flew off, along with four bags of cement, a bunch of wooden planks (which came off but held together) and a can of wood stain, so there was plenty of mess to clean up, which I presume was largely done by the fire & rescue team, who seemed to all know what they were doing.

I guess I was in shock and it is all a bit of a blur, but the police officer in charge, the fire fighter who came and spoke to me, and then the ambulance guys who came and looked at my hand and checked the kids' pulses etc, were all very kind. The police officer called me later in the day to check how I was doing which was nice. Of course I said I was fine.

And I am fine really. The kids are all good, and don't seem particularly traumatised by it. I'm going to see my osteopath tomorrow after work, but my aches and strains are getting better anyway I think. My hand still hurts but it's been xrayed, nothing's broken, and it's much better than it was a week ago too. I'm just feeling very flat is all. Thanks for listening. I think I'll go to bed.  

When Mothering Is Political

"However, so-called ‘mummy blogging’ is not a purely personal endeavour. Despite the gleeful mocking of ‘serious bloggers’ and ‘hilarious male columnists’ the issues explored by ‘mummy bloggers’ are often highly political. For many women of my generation, motherhood is a time when we are confronted with the full force of patriarchy and the seemingly insurmountable challenge of maintaining equality in our relationships, let alone within society, after becoming mothers."

Great article over at Larvatus Prodeo on the political nature of 'mummy bloggers'.

Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello Class One!

Mikaela started class one this morning.

The Orana ritual for the first day of class one begins with returning to your kindergarten (new kindy children start at 10 on the first day).

We dropped Mikaela off and then waited - with all the other parents - just outside the playground. Once all the children had arrived, their kindy teacher, Jacqui, gathered them together for a few final words and gave each child a rose.

She then led them out in a line of pairs, each child holding another's hand, to walk down to their new classroom (with parents following at - supposedly - a discreet distance). There, their new teacher, Michael, who will have them for the next seven years, greeted them at the door. They each handed him a rose, shook his hand, and went into the class room.

Their new class is made up of the children from two of the four kindergartens, so behind Mikaela's class came the other class. When all children were inside and seated, the kindergarten teachers went in. Jacqui was carrying a candle, which I believe she placed in a candle holder in the room, and Michael placed all the roses in a vase.

And so their day began, and we went down to the canteen for "parent cafe", to chat with the other parents and debrief a little.

Mikaela was truly excited to start class one - to return to school and her friends, to learn to read and write, and to be part of the "proper school" as she put it this morning. The kindergartens are separate to the primary school with their own enclosed playgrounds (one to each pair of kindergartens), and include the preschool children as well.

Watching Mikaela move into class one was not a teary moment for me particularly. She is ready to move up, and besides, she's not my baby. I still have another to go through.

But, saying goodbye to Jacqui myself, when I dropped Mikaela off at the kindergarten, did bring some tears to my eyes. Mikaela has spent the last two years in that delightful space, with a warm and wonderful teacher and her equally lovely assistant, Katrina. And, two years earlier, Liam had the same teachers. Both times I acted as class coordinator for the two years, and really I enjoyed the role.

It seems silly when I say it, but I think I will miss Mikaela's kindergarten teacher more than she will! In two years time Eliane will start in that same room, also with Jacqui, and we will have another two years of visiting there. But in four years, when Eliane moves up to class one? I think I will be having a really good cry.

This is Mikaela two years ago on the first day of preschool. Eliane wears that hat now.

 

52 Weeks Photo Meme

I saw this meme somewhere, a photo of each child every week for the year. I can't remember where I saw it, and I'm a month late to the game, but I have decided to do it anyway. (I'll find the link up and add it in later).

This is all three of them from last Monday:

Two Elianes!

Eliane, talking about her cousin Hamish:

"He'll be two soon, like me, won't he Mum?"

"Yes he will."

Dancing around excitedly: "And then we'll both be Elianes."

This is Eliane on a beach in Batemans Bay a two weekends back. She'll actually be three before her cousin turns two, but I didn't tell her that!

"If millions of reinforcing signals say a woman's work is less significant, something will eventually begin to stick."

This article explains why I participated in the Australian Women Writers challenge this year.

It is also part of why I was so, so pleased with Julia Gillard's speech in parliament this week, openly accusing the opposition leader of sexism, and even more so with the subseqent interview Penny Wong gave on the 7:30 report.

In the interview Senator Wong points out that the PM being called "precious or a victim" or the equivalent is par for the course when a women speaks up against sexism, and is part of how we continue to we silence women in this country.

We need to be having this conversation in mainstream Australia. We need to be having it in the media.

'Women who do speak out—whether against sexism in the literary world or in the church or in the academy or in politics—are often accused of "whining," and then, like children, they are punished. But I am convinced the risk is worth it.

'...

'Author V. S. Naipaul recently claimed in an interview with the Royal Geographic Society that there was not a single female writer he considered his equal—not even Jane Austen, whose work he dismissed as "sentimental."...

'It might be possible to dismiss Naipaul's blatant sexism as the ravings of an arrogant misogynist if there were structural equality in the publishing industry, but there isn't. For the second year in a row, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts released a series of pie charts (the VIDA count) showcasing annual data comparing the rate of publication between women and men in the writing world's most respected literary outlets—and things don't look good for women who write.² VIDA reports that in 2011, The Atlantic published 184 articles and pieces of fiction by men and 64 by women; 18 of their book reviewers were men and 8 were women; and 24 of the authors reviewed were men, compared to 12 women. Harper's Magazine published 65 articles by men and 13 articles by women; 23 of their book reviewers were men and 10 were women; 53 of the authors reviewed were men, 19 were women. The New York Review of Books published 133 articles by men and 19 by women; 201 of their book reviewers were male and 53 were female; and they reviewed 75 male authors and only 17 female authors. I could go on. The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, The London Review of Books—all pay more attention to books and essays and articles and poems and short stories written by men than they do to those written by women.

'Gendered responses to women's writing have led several women to create alter egos in an effort to determine whether it is their ideas that generate hostile responses or whether simply being a woman with an opinion is enough on its own, no matter what they write. In "Disagree with Me—But Not Because I'm a Black Woman," Hannah Pool describes creating an online white male alter ego, Harry Pond. "I went on to a couple of threads. The opinions were my own, but the name a fake," she writes. "Unsurprisingly, Harry Pond received no racism and no sexism, in fact very little of anything by way of comment. People engaged with 'Harry' in a grownup manner, without the need for insults. Is this what it's like to be a white man? Having people accept your right to a difference of opinion?"³ In 2009, researcher Emily Glassberg sent out identical scripts to theaters in the United States, half with a male name and half with a female name. She found that those believed to have been written by women were rated significantly worse by artistic directors and literary managers than those written by men. "This was even the case when many of those artistic directors and literary managers were women."⁴

'I am beginning to understand why Mary Ann Evans changed her name to George Eliot.

'...

'[Author Dani Shapiro described] a recent post by Tim Parks on the The New York Review of Books blog in which Parks explores how "the writer's job" is currently understood and illustrates how this conception has changed over time. Parks mentions many writers—Sophocles, Virgil, Pope, Petrarch, Chaucer, Byron, Shelley, T. S. Eliot, Rushdie, Pamuk, Coetzee. "It was on second read that it occurred to me that there were no women. Not one," Shapiro said. "This was written by someone who simply doesn't have female writers as any kind of reference."

'What does it mean that a supposedly historical account of the writer's job can ignore all female writers? Most contemporary statistics suggest that women are writing more books than men are writing, and women are reading more books than men are reading, and women are buying more books than men are buying, and yet our work, our very existence, is regularly made to disappear. What effect does this erasure have? On women? On writers? On readers? Theater critic and novelist Alison Croggon writes, "If millions of reinforcing signals say a woman's work is less significant, something will eventually begin to stick."

'...

'What can be done?

'First, buy books written by women. Novels, memoirs, theology, political nonfiction, scientific explorations, poetry, history, mysteries. Put yourself on a diet of books by women and see what happens. Read them with your book groups. Review them online. Disagree with their ideas. Critique their arguments. Revel in the power of their words.'

For more (including 2nd & 3rd things to do): Sarah Sentilles: The Pen is Mightier: Sexist responses to women writing about religion.

October is No-Spend Month (First Status report)

We are having a no-spend month this month. We are sort of mixing up Buy Nothing New month with the Simply Savings $21 challenge (spend $21 on food for a week - only we are doing it for 4 weeks), and coincidentally doing it at the same time as Erica's no-spend month October.

We actually started just before the end of September, aligning it with our last pay day, which was also the day I paid last month's credit card bills - and there, combined with two car regos due this month - is our inspiration! We paid off the credit cards (we usually put everything on credit card and pay it off at the end of the month), but there wasn't much money left in the bank!

"Time for a no-spend month," I said.

So how are we going so far?

Well, not too bad, but not fabulously. We had about $100 in cash between us, so we decided to see if we could make that last all month for our food bills.The $21 challenge is theorically for a family of 4, so that works out about right.

We'd still have to pay for petrol, bills, the mortgage etc, but we're doing 'buy nothing new' anyway (and nothing second-hand either), and then just trying to eat out of what's already in the house as much as we could.

We had to buy toilet paper and cat food the first week, which in retrospect shouldn't really have come out of the cash, but then again, we really don't have a lot of other money to spare this month!

So what are we eating?

From the garden: We have lots of greens growing (3 different kinds of silverbeet, a few pick-and-come again lettuces, and beetroot leaves), though some of them are starting to go to seed, plus Spring onions and lots of herbs, and of course plenty of eggs.

I picked and ate my first (ever) baby beet yesterday, and there are lots more to come, but they mostly have a ways to go. Ditto the leaks and garlic. We have a few snap peas, but the kids eat the pods as soon as they are half way ready. Elli, mostly.

Grains: We've been eating a lot of rice, but unfortunately I can see it running out within the next 1-2 weeks at best. However, we do still have a fair bit of spaghetti and a bag of quinoa. We also have a fair bit of spelt flour and bakers flour left, so I see plenty of muffins and other snacks being baked in the next few weeks. We have still been buying bread, however I may make some too. I think I have only about three 5g sachets of yeast, but buying more of that will be cheaper than the bread.

Ready-meals & meat: we've already eaten just about all the meals we had frozen, though we may still have a container of chilli and one of soup I think. Ditto frozen meat, but we do still have about 4 chicken carcasses and some slightly manky carrots and celery I will be turning into chicken noodle soup this week.

Other protein: we still have quite a lot of dried beans and lentils. I made a lot of hommus and froze some of it a few days ago, plus some 'savory chickpeas' (pressure cooked for 40 minutes with a bay leaf, garlic, half a lemon and some salt - came out really yum!), but of course only Eliane & I really liked them, though Mikaela did eat some. And of course there are eggs.

Tomorrow night we'll be having dahl and rice for dinner, but since NONE of my kids will eat the dahl, there'll need to be a lot of rice and yoghurt.

Yoghurt: I make this so we have still been eating plenty, but whereas usually I used cartons of milk plus some milk powder, I have switched back to using all milk powder, since I had an un-opened packet in the cupboard. I've been using the powder to stretch our drinking milk budget too.

What we are spending (grocery) money on:

Is mostly milk, bread, fruit and some vegetables. Oh, and we did buy a 1kg block of cheese. Usually we spend at least $50/week on milk & bread (we go through a lot of milk, and we won't buy the cheap dairy-bankrupting brands), and easily spend $100/week on fruit and veg. Maybe more.

We've also bought tortillas, sugar (the kefir can't live without sugar...), a pack of 'for quick sale' organic mince, and a few other items I've forgetten no doubt.

So the fact that we still have some of our $100 left a week & a half in is an achievement I reckon. We have, however, been using up the powdered milk at a great rate. It won't last another week.

It's not really the greatest time to be doing the 21 dollar challenge for us, with Spring just underway, so not all that much in the garden or left in the larder, plus school holidays began two days after we started. Chris took the kids to Floriade last week and got a lot of whinging about the 'torture' of not being able to buy an ice cream!

But with two car regos to pay this month (that is, nearly $2000 worth) plus a $1000 gas bill that arrived the 2nd day of the challenge, we really don't have any choice.

We did also get around a $500 credit on the electricity bill from our solar panels, but we vowed any money we made there would go straight to paying off the money we took off the mortgage to pay for them in the first place.

What we should be doing and are not:

Is a proper audit of what we do have in our pantry, fridge and freezer, and menu planning. So far we've just been doing what we normally do, figuring out each meal's menu as close as possible to the time it needs to be served. Not so good for being organised and using up food we have.

So that's my goal for this week: a proper food audit, and at least a casual menu plan.

My challenge for the week is having 3 other kids at my house on Friday, for potentially the whole day, PLUS they're all sleeping over.

Snacks I can do okay (muffins, oat slice, and oh yes, I bought some more popping corn too, and fruit), lunch is pretty easy if I buy or make bread, but can I do a dinner meal they will all eat some of, without spending?

We'll see.

Maybe that will be the chicken noodle soup night.

And I think I have enough rhubarb in the garden to make a pie for our Friday night dessert night, though that pretty much requires ice cream, or at the very least cream... Maybe sweetened yoghurt?

(Totally off-topic, but I posted an article I've been working on for a few weeks over at Sustainable Suburbia today, on building sustainable & resilient local communities.)