Another Bloody Blog?

I've been trying to keep my computer time down for the last few days as I had a sore back. I sit all day at work so I took Friday off and made it a long weekend, and did lots of baking as I can do that standing up.

It seems to be a lot better now, and my boss swapped chairs around so I have a much more comfortable chair to sit in.

I have volunteered to help at the upcoming Writers Festival. This involves standing at the door taking tickets for a session or two, and has the bonus of free admission to that session. I'm always on the lookout for freebies these days, given that our income is not what it was a couple of years back. It's amazing how many ways there are to get little treats. I'll probably buy a few tickets once I know what sessions I have been allocated, especially for the poetry sessions.

One session I am not planning to attend is the session on literary blogging
- called "Not Another Bloody Blog". It's amazing how snobby writers can be about blogging. You don't for instance hear Olympic runners complaining that there are too many joggers out there. But I have heard writers express the idea that many blogs are worthless.

Well, certainly some deserve a wide audience, and others don't. But then, many are not written for a wide audience. They are written for friends and family , or just for the pleasure of writing. And probably for many more reasons besides. For instance, after our big trip last year, I recorded it day by day on my blog, with photos, mainly to fix it in my mind while it was fresh. In telling your life you get to experience it all over again - once by doing, and once by retelling. Of course, I peek at my site counter to, just to see if anyone else is reading it. And I have made some connections that I treasure through blogging, but I no longer worry about attracting dozens and dozens of readers.

It doesn't matter whether the whole world thinks my blog is "worthless", it is not worthless to me, any more than going for a walk would be - it improves my mental fitness just as walking improves my physical fitness.

Actually, many (not all) writers' blogs seem to be as boring as most of the others. "I have finished my first draft" or "my publisher has sent the cover mockups" is no more inherently interesting than "my first grandchild has arrived" or "I had scrambled eggs with chili peppers for breakfast".

Birthday Jottings

I had a strange experience driving home from work. I reached the first major roundabout, which is where the traffic to and from the airport crosses the major ring road around the city, which usually carries a constant stream of traffic. Today, there was virtually none. No traffic queued up for a hundred or so metres down the airport road. I sailed straight through, and continued to sail through every traffic light controlled intersection until I was nearly home. This strangely surreal experience came to a halt when I reached the last traffic light but one, and again had to queue through three changes of traffic light before reaching the intersection, But it was wonderful while it lasted.

I reached home just in time to grab my credit card (which I realised earlier in the day I had left at home) and get to my doctor's appointment with not a minute to spare. On the corner just before the medical centre, a giant chicken waved at me. Or at least, a man in a black and white chicken suit waved at me. (No camera, and no time, so no photograph, unfortunately).

It's my birthday. Which is not a huge deal for several reasons. One is that we had the family birthday dinner last night, since it was a Sunday and therefore no one was working. I don't tend to attach a big significance to the actual day. I remember birthdays more by events that happen in close proximity. This year, it's our trip to the UK which I view as a giant birthday present. All our spare cash (and more) is attached to the trip, so any little fun presents are a bonus. I have "Kiwi Magnetic Poetry". And chocolate. (I may not have chocolate much longer, at the rate I am nibbling it.)

Other birthdays I remember are the year I got engaged, five days before my nineteenth birthday. Or the year my parents came for a birthday dinner, on the night of my birthday, which was a Friday. I intended to have the birthday dinner on the Saturday, since I was working. But since my parents were leaving on holiday on the Saturday morning, I held the dinner on the actual day of my birthday. The next morning, early enough that it was still dark, I had a phone call from my mother to say that my father had died suddenly some time in the night. I don't think I feel sad about that birthday (though I do about my father's death) - I feel grateful that we were all together on a happy occasion, on his last night alive.

Despite not making a huge deal of my birthday, it was very nice to wake up to birthday e-mails from blog friends (thanks, Dana) and e-mail friends from around the world. Especially since they had taken the trouble to work out that it is actually my birthday in New Zealand almost a day before the calendar hits the same date elsewhere in the world.

I had a blog visit from the wonderfully entertaining Mr Farty yesterday. He left this comment:
"Lions! You've got lions! Not fair, we've only got cows in Embra.
Or did have until your lions ate them."

(Go ahead - click the link - you know you want to.)

Hair

There's a small pile of hair clippings on our floor right now. My sons darkish brown in the middle, with my own....ummm....blonder locks in the middle.

Now that I'm growing grey, I rather like the shade of my hair. My eldest daughter stopped in this morning and we walked to church together. I commented to her that my hair seemed to me to be blonde rather than silvery grey - "or am I just deluding myself?" Children of course are no respecters of their parents' feelings. She was quite happy to assure me that I am deluding myself. Still, it's more of a golden grey than silvery grey, I'm sure. (You can always check my sidebar photo and see what you think).

P - my husband - has always cut our children's hair. I don't think either of my boys have had a paid haircut in their lives, and the girls have not had too many either. He does a pretty good job. But I've never let him loose on mine before. Now that I'm working full time though, it's hard to find time to get to the hairdresser, and besides, our budget is rather tight. It's a quick way of saving quite a lot of money in one go. He offered to use his number 5 comb, or maybe a number 1. I pointed out that the reason was to save money, and it would be rather expensive for me to buy a wig. So he stuck to doing what I asked, which was to trim off about two months worth of growth. It seems a bit less layered than before, but he did a fairly respectable job.

More musings on hair at Sunday Scribblings.

Grumpy on Friday

Today I am feeling grumpy over something that is so trivial that I'm not going to share the details. Two things, actually. They make me feel lacking in social skills, probably because I am. (That's why we blog, I guess). I was thinking about those polls that ask if you could go back and change something in your life, would you? Well, I could answer that I want a different husband, or a nicer house, or more travel, or to have a better job, but would I be happier? Probably not.

There are people on earth with better lives, and there are others (the vast majority, no doubt) who are worse off. And what would really make my life better would be to learn how to inhabit the life I have with more grace and generosity.

In the meantime, to cheer myself, and the rest of you, up, here is a spot of sunny yellow. This odd little building is a vintage clothing store, whose window display caught my eye while I was driving to work. Fortunately, I carry my camera with me more and more often these days.

Eight Things About Me

Chiefbiscuit has tagged me for this meme. The rules are:
First:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each participant posts eight random facts about themselves.
3. Tagees should write a blogpost of eight random facts about themselves.
4. At the end of the post, eight more bloggers are tagged (named and shamed).
5. Go to their blog, leave a comment telling them they're tagged (cut and run).

So, what can I tell you that is in the least bit interesting? (Other than things I have revealed before). I think I am going to be truly random here.

1. When hanging out laundry, I like to colour co-ordinate the pegs to the garments. I confessed this to a co-worker once, and she laughed at me.
2. I have a strangely shaped fingernail on the ring finger of my right hand. It happened when I squashed it in the cake cupboard door when I was three years old (no prizes for guessing what I was up to).
3. My masters thesis was called "The rearrangements of p-quinols." It's in our bookcase. My children spotted it one day and exclaimed "mummy wrote a book!" (I can't remember anything about the rearrangements of p-quinols. I guess I could always read it and find out).
4. I love quiz shows. When I was about thirteen I auditioned to be in a quiz team to compete against children in other countries. I just missed the team. They asked guy questions like sports and engineering. When the quiz went on air, I listened and found I knew more answers than the boy who made the team. They asked more literature questions and no sports.
5. I don't own a single pair of jeans.
6. I rarely wear make-up.
7. I'm hopelessly unathletic, but I love the outdoors, and I enjoy orienteering (okay, my regular readers knew that already).
8. I can touch my nose with the tip of my tongue.

Fact number nine: I know enough mathematics to figure that if this meme has been around for a bit, and the first person tagged eight people, who each tagged eight people, who each tagged eight people, and so on.. well, most of you have been tagged by now.
So I'm going to break the rules.
If you haven't been tagged, and you want to do it, leave a comment to let me know, and I will come and read your eight random facts.

It's Cold...

In the morning I jump out of bed and straight into a hot shower. Then before I can get too cold, I put on bra and panties, a thermal singlet (vest), a brushed cotton shirt and brushed moleskin trousers, a wool/angora vest* on top of that , then a woollen cardigan, shoes and socks. Before I leave the house I add a woollen coat, thick sheepskin gloves, and a woollen bobble hat.

At that point I'm ready to walk to work in the frost, and if I walk briskly enough I arrive warmer than when I left home. Or, I'm ready for a game of strip poker in a warm house. If I can find one.

*I'm trying to be trilingual here. New Zealand English, UK English and American English. Hopefully all my readers can figure out which garments I am describing.

Shopping

After being "in my head" for all of April, with NaPoWriMo, I felt the urge to make something. I'm sending off job applications and with fingers crossed that something turns up, I'm feeling the need to update my work wardrobe. Especially since I've lost 14 kgs in the past eight months (about thirty pounds), and most of my clothes are rather loose. And it's so long since I sewed my own clothes that I'm not too sure what pattern size to use any more.

However, I do have some multisize patterns in my possession, and I have some fabric stored away which wasn't very expensive, so I'm going to make some shirts to test out the patterns, and then I can look for more "business-like" fabric when I get the fit right.

So I headed off into town this morning to buy buttons, and poetry. The poetry book I was after is "Blame Vermeer" by Vincent O'Sullivan. I'm heading off to bed to read it, shortly.

In the City Mall there was a girl with a basket of something. It looked as if she might be soliciting donations, or something like that, so I was carefully looking away. Others were hurrying past, too. And then I realised what was in the basket. Chocolate! Samples of Fair Trade chocolate, to be exact, and very nice tasting chocolate it was, too.

I wasn't impressed with the poetry selection in most bookstores. About half a shelf tucked away in some obscure spot without its own shelf title, mostly. For example, New Zealand poetry tucked in at the end of New Zealand fiction. And then, a good half of the poetry was those collections, often sentimental and awful, of "ten poems to change your life" or "poems to read at weddings and funerals". But I did eventually find the book I was after.

And I had a nice time walking around town on a sunny autumn day, poking around in interesting shops like Cherry Blossom and Blue Earth. Shops where I'm not likely to buy anything (Japanese fabric covered journals for $40, anyone? Beautiful, but I'd be scared to write in them) - but it's fun to look, once in a while. And to smell the beautiful Blue Earth soaps and massage balms.

And even though it's autumn, and the leaves are falling from the trees, the flowers in the pots on this balcony didn't seem to know that.

My Photo

I've put this photo up so I can add it to my profile as per instructions on blogger. The only problem is that when I follow the instructions and then try and save the profile, I get an error message. Grrr. Maybe I'll try again later.

Update: I should have read all the instructions. There are two URLs with a photo on blogger, the first is the large version and the second is the small version. Using the second one worked, the first must have been above the size limit.

The photo is in honour of my new haircut. And the autumn maples in our yard, which are losing their leaves fast. (Although the one in the background here is still greener than most).

I've been tweaking my blog a bit lately. I also added the poem that gives the blog its title to my profile. And I updated some of my links. What I really want to do is to come up with a fancy graphic for the header, but I'm a bit nervous about trying in case I mess the whole blog up.