TLM models her cardigan

In it's finished form, with two red functional buttons plus two decorative ones.

Here it is on TLM

And here she is with her most mental pose...

A day of one's own

Today I have been watching brain-numbing television, knitting, and surfing the web for interesting knitting patterns to use on my Rowan Summer Tweed yarn. Soon I'll put on some Buffy and have my lunch.

It would be a blissful day if I wasn't headache-y, feverish and coughing up unspeakable yuckiness.
I have TLM's cold - it didn't affect her like this.

The little shit - the next generation

Most of you weren't reading my blog back in 2004, when I wrote about the time a little kid assaulted me on the library bus (and I wasn't even trying to make him pay overdue fines).

But that's what the title of this blog post is referring to.
This isn't a sequel exactly. But there's certainly a little shit in this story.

The story, to cut a long one into a short one, is that TLM was punched in the chest yesterday by a little shit in her class. This little shit is the same boy who last year kicked another classmate in the groin so hard that she bled, and was off school for a week.

TLM wasn't so badly injured, and seems to be over it. But I've known about this kid and his propensity for violence and foul language for about a year. I can't give any details because it's all confidential, but the school has been trying to deal with the kid and keep him under some kind of control while still giving him a chance to change his ways.

Part of me (say, about 90%) just wants him out of my daughter's class (and preferably in a special facility with trained supervisors and lots of padding).
The other part of me thinks that, for a 6 year old kid to be this anti-social, he must have been raised in a truly horrible environment.

I don't have an answer for how someone like this ought to be dealt with. But there are about 20 kids in his class who need to feel safe.

Cardigan finished

You know that saying "the camera loves her"?
Well the camera has really got a grudge against me, because since adulthood the only two photos of me I haven't hated have been taken in low light and from about 10 m away.

Anyway, the cardigan's finished, just in time for our trip to the UK in their spring. I'll be wearing it over long sleeves of course, so protect my dainty skin from wool-irritation.

It will probably look much better over a black t-shirt rather than the shiny green thing pictured here.
If you want the the whole gory knitting story, go here.

non-knitting books I've been reading

It was a sewing book.

Just kidding. After a long stretch of narrowly focusing on that particular aisle in the public library which starts with interior design, moves onto cross-stitch, weaving and knitting before finishing with crochet - I decided that I had enough cardigan patterns.

So I read David Sedaris' When you are engulfed in flames, which I loved. It's one of those blackly funny memoir-type books which I would have loved to write myself (but my protagonist would not have been a gay American ex-smoker). I liked it so much I went back for another one - which title I forget, but it's full of animal stories (as in, there are no people but the animals are people, if you get my drift). It's also funny, bleak and makes me nod my head and go "yes, that's right".

I also have The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgekinson. But it's not as interesting because it's too simular to his How to be Idle. I suspect the author's a bit of a libertarian, as he's always going on about how the government is controlling the population. But he is also anti-capitalist, so that's alright. I can't help feeling though that his way of living only works if you are a free-lancer and if everyone else is still part of the "system".

On popularity

I've been worrying about TLM because, even though she's the nicest, cutest, most imaginative and  charming 6 1/2 year old I know, she is sometimes friendless.

At school TLM has tons of friends - no worries there.
But at Chinese School (which is weekly), if her cousin isn't there then she has no chums amongst her classmates.

After each Pippins meeting lately, she tearfully complains that the other girls won't talk to her. It hasn't put her off going, and it's probably due to her being the only girl in the group who doesn't go to school there. But the thought of her sitting all by herself while gaggles of girls giggle around her, makes me sad.

TLM also does a bit of Chinese dancing. And it's a really similar situation there. They don't all go to the same school or anything, but they are pretty clique-y. 

Probably, if I don't do anything, she will eventually either make more friends just by being her lovely self - or turn out to be one of those types with a really small number of wonderful friends rather than a hoard of casual friends.  She will probably be fine.

It's hard not to try to make it better though.

Is this how yarn stashes begin?

When I buy knitting yarn, I usually have a project in mind already - like a specific pattern I want to use. That way, I know exactly how much yarn to buy and what colours to use. It also minimises the risk of building a huge stash of yarns that I don't necessarily know what to do with.

But I have discovered Deramores. They have a subsite for New Zealand, so all the prices are in NZ dollars. And the prices are so low compared to local retail prices that it's hard to believe they are in NZ dollars rather than pounds.

It's very very tempting to buy just about everything, especially the Rowan yarns which are prohibitively expensive here (like, $18 for a ball of Rowan Jeans for example). But I want to support my local yarn shops and New Zealand yarns etc, so I'll try to stick to yarns that I can't easily get locally - like cotton or silk types. And Rowan.


It's so very very tempting...

You can tell it's the start of a new year...

The weekend of the 11th-12th February is going to so busy I'll need naps:

• On the Friday I have to go to Taupo to train some people and be back in time to tuck TLM into bed
• On Saturday I need to take TLM down to a school across town to enrol in music lessons
• On Sunday mid-morning her best friend from daycare is having a birthday dance party.
• On Sunday afternoon she's in a group performing a ribbon dance in the Chinese New Year Parade
• and some time before then I have to enrol her in swimming lessons...

I think TLM might need some naps too.

A winter cardie for TLM

I know it's the middle of summer here, but I reckon it will be very handy for when WE GO TO THE UK IN APRIL!! (yes that's right, the flights are booked, the insurance is bought and the UK family have been warned)

p.s. if you're a knitting nerd like me you can check out the progress on Ravelry (even if you ain't a member).

Better than Cosmic

Until recently, The Little Madam's favourite place to go was the Cosmic shop. It's a loud and funky place where a DJ plays music to nod your head by, and you can shop for a leopard-print fedora, an ice cube mould shaped like UFOs or a bong (but not the stuff that goes in the bong). It's bright, it's colourful, and the staff look like they love being there. They always give TLM free stickers too.

But now TLM's favourite place is the Marine Education Centre. I took her there last Sunday for one of their regular open days, and they have this high, shallow basin where rocky shore creatures live. You're allowed to touch them, even pick them up and stroke 'em like pets.

TLM was particularly struck by the sand dollar starfish, which she like way better than the hermit crab and the sea cucumber. She'd pick it up, put it on the back of her hand and let it's little feelers tickle her skin. She probably spent at least an hour there, perched on an apple crate and wearing one starfish after another.

My favourite bit was watching one of the (ex-household pet) turtles attempt to climb on top of another, lose its balance and fall over backwards, it's flippers waving around like it was doing a "dead ant".

Mushroom hunting in the shadow of Ruapehu

TLM loves going on holiday. That's probably because she associates it with staying in a reasonably comfortable motel unit and going on day trips with mum and dad.

 She was probably quite disappointed when we went to Tongariro National Park for our Christmas/New Year holiday and had to share a small bunkroom in a scout camp.

There were about 50-60 other people, all of whom where friends and family of the guy whose 50th birthday we'd gone up to celebrate. There were loads of children (and even a fellow knitter).

So despite the lack of privacy and sleep, we did have a very sociable time - maybe even more than we could cope with, being a small and normally quiet little family.

 We went for walks at the foot of Mt Ruapehu, shopped for thermal underwear (for the sudden and unprepared-for drop in temperature), and used our mushroom identification guide to name the various fungi that we came across.

But sleep deprivation won out in the end, and we came home a couple of days early. Just to show how much sleep I needed to catch up on, I slept in until 10am today - unheard of!

Dollhouse

Argh...we've been watching Dollhouse, which has taken this long (2 years!) to arrive on New Zealand television (but at 9.30pm when I'd normally be gearing down for the night).

I found it quite dark and sometimes a real downer because I hated the concept of men and women essentially being pimped out to rich people to fulfill their fantasies. It was also kinda confusing - characters seemed to disappear with no explanation and others changed from being bad guys to not-so-bad guys and back again suddenly.

If it weren't for the fact that I was browsing a Joss Whedon magazine (a run-down of every episode of every tv series he's ever done!), I would not have realised that the tv network has been showing us the episodes in a completely mixed up order. Like, Epitaph Two coming right after Epitaph One - when they are each the final episodes to 2 entirely separate seasons. That might explain all the sudden disappearances and character changes!

Now I'm gonna have to order the DVDs from overseas so I can watch them in the proper order.

Going public-er

I just spent an hour uploading my knitting projects to Ravelry. It was very satisfying to revisit my successes (my failures having nearly all been unravelled so there are no photos) and to have another brag about them.

Not that I'm saying you have to revisit them with me. Because I haven't figured out how you'd do that.

I think this means that the camera DOES lie

My recent passport photo has been haunting me ever since I first laid eyes on that horrid image. How could I have aged so much since the last one, taken five years ago?
I toyed with the idea that maybe I shouldn't have grown out my fringe after all.
And I should have done it on a day when I washed my hair, for maximum volume.

Then I decided to have 'em done again, only this time I went to the pharmacy where I'd got my photos done five years ago. See, this pharmacy doesn't insist on you putting your hair behind your ears.

And you know what? I think I look just five years older after all.

If Santa was a knitter...

I would get a year's subscription to Interweave Knits and Knitscene magazines, and every member of my family would receive hand-knitted expressions of love from me for Christmas.

If the boy reads this blog post there's a chance of the first one coming true.
And I'm working on the other one - this pair of heavily cabled cushions are for my brother and my sister in law. The colour of the yarn is more of a ginger colour than how it looks in the photo.

And this vest is for my mum. Yes, it is mid-summer. But she feels cold a lot.
The kids and the boy will be getting something non-knitted, because they prefer toys...

Surprisingly edible gingerbread dinosaurs

TLM brought home a wee notice asking for help with her school's fundraising sweet stall - as you do.
I didn't fancy spending 4 hours of my Saturday selling cakes and biscuits, because if it turned out to be a windy day my eyes would be bloodshot all day.
So I decided to use the dinosaur cookie cutters that TLM got for Christmas last year and make biscuits. The theory is, if you can make 'em look pretty they won't notice if they don't taste good.
Then, of course, I mentioned it at work and next thing I know there's an Alison Holst recipe for gingerbread men on my seat.
Turns out, it makes a very nice biscuit.

The photos are of the proportion I kept for home consumption, so you can't see that I made Tyranosaurus Rexes to go with the Stegosauruses (which, to be honest, look more like chameleons).

We went by the stall on Saturday (after voting in the general election), and it looked like most of 'em had been sold. A hit!

p.s. I won't copy the recipe for you because 1) it would probably break copyright laws, and 2) I can't possibly be bothered doing all that typing. But I think it was in last week's Dominion Post if you're interested.

a seedling girl scout

I really want TLM to learn self-reliance and how to survive in the bush.
I want her to have a wider circle of friends and I want her to have opportunities to go camping.

So last Tuesday evening I took her to a local Pippins group meeting. (Pippins is the section of Girl Guides for girls aged 5 and 6.)

(I did think of calling the Scouts too, as an alternative, since they take girls now. But in the end I was too lazy to make that extra phone call.)
And she loved it. They went tree-planting at a neighbouring school, sangs songs, went for a rainforest walk and a ride on a flying fox.

Apparently they don't do the knot-tying and camping until Brownies (for the next age group up) - which is okay - and it's not God-fearing as it would have been in the old days - which is a relief. They might even teach her to crochet animals (fingers crossed).

Never get your passports photos taken on bad hair day

We're planning on visiting the boy's family next year, in the UK. Hooray!

But then I realised that my passport, and TLM's have both expired (because the powers that be - bastards! - decided that NZ passports only last 5 years).

Which meant that it was time for my 5-yearly photo.

It probably wouldn't have made a difference if I was having a good hair day.

Maybe it's the harsh light, or the fact that I blank out anything truly ugly I see when I look in the mirror, or the fact that the photos are so severely cropped that there's absolutely no hope your fabulous outfit will distract the viewer from seeing your inglorious flaws.
But, ye gads I was shocked.

You know how certain sects recruit new members by offering free personality tests, whose purpose is to expose (or make up) all your terrible character flaws?

Well, I reckon if Botox-ers and cosmetic surgeons offered a free passport photo service, they'd become Bill Gates-level billionaires. Because when I returned to my desk I started looking up anti-aging products...

not so gross domestic product

I've been left alone at home this morning - the boy has taken TLM out for breakfast at McD's and who-knows-what.
I could have spent my morning cleaning the house, which is what I did last time they went out without me.

This time, I've been productive in a more enjoyable way - after patching one of TLM's may knee-holed leggings, I set about refashioning a jumper of mine.
There are actually two of them - same style, different colours - which I bought last winter when I felt like I needed a warm, non-itchy jumper. The only place selling them seemed to be Ballentynes, a place I've always felt seemed like an old-lady shop, but had the widest range of woolies in town.
These are 100% genuine acrylic - nothing flash but at least I can wear those next to my skin.

I loved the cabled neckline and the colour, but the length is pretty tragic on me, no? (Plus it's still creased from being folded up and crammed in my drawer)

 So I decided to experiment on one of them.
I cut off the ribbing at the hem, zig-zagged both raw edges and dyed it a different colour. I didn't really dye it another colour. This is just the other jumper...

 The ribbing makes a lovely cowl for next winter!
(It's probably more flattering than the jumper, even post-alteration.)
Genius!

Proof of my lack of fitness

It was our AGM and we had to be there at 9am.
I was running late.
"I'll give you a lift" the boy offered.
At the bottom of the hill I rememberd my cell phone was still plugged in at home, so we had to return for that.
The boy dropped me off at the bottom of the stadium steps and I thought 'Yay I'm nearly there!"
Then I got to the top of the steps and realised that about I was still about a kilometre away from the entrance...
I ran and got out of breath...walked a bit... ran and got out of breath... walked...I huffed and I puffed and I got all sweaty...

and today my muscles are sore. I even have shin splints!

What I did in the school holidays

I have been taking time off for the second week of TLM's school holidays, and am having a great time (I can't speak for TLM but I reckon she's having fun too).
Although we haven't left town, I'm definitely spending money as though we were!

After days of buying yarn, summer clothes for me and TLM, books (including Conversations with Joss Whedon), lunches and gourmet ice creams, it was no surprise when I got a low-funds alert from my bank.

Yesterday I took TLM rollerskating - it was only her second time ever but she did get to the stage of being able to roll slowly for a couple of seconds without holding onto anything. Then we spent the afternoon at the beach where TLM got most of her clothes sea-soaked, and built a weird sculpture from bits of seaweed and dead crabs.

Today will be a lower-cost day - she's spending the morning watching Horrible Histories DVDs with a friend, and in the afternoon I'll drag her to a yarn sale near the beach (and if she's lucky there'll be beach play and ice creams to follow).

Love holidays.

On turning 47 and knitting a 60's style jumper

Isn't this a groovy rug? The boy bought it last Friday when he and TLM had a school holiday day-out. It goes so nicely with my new jumper...

In case you're wondering, I knitted the jumper out of some Patons Zhivago which I had already knit into cardigans - and unravelled - twice. Yes, this is thrice-knitted acrylic yarn and it doesn't seem to have suffered to0 much in the process.

The pattern is from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits book -  I had to add extra increases in the body to accommodate the extra centimetres in my body.

So anyway, my 47th birthday came and went with little celebration, except that for once I shouted morning tea at work (vegan choco cake and cookies from Midnight Espresso) and the boy made extra-yummy gumbo for tea, with extra prawns and scallops. Mmm...

Three hottie cosies, two woolly vests and a very flattering slanted gretel tee...

Just so you know I've been keeping busy knitwise,  I've made:

• three modified versions of the Hygge Nook hot water bottle cosy (but different because I knitted two strands of doubleknit yarn together so it would be quicker to finish, and did a central cable rather than multiple cables)
• the Back to School vest from Fitted Knits (attempted against my better judgement, only to have it confirmed that a ribbed pullover is only slimming if you are actually slim)
• a modified version of the Blue Alvarez stripey cabled vest ( but mostly in a paua blue Cascade 220 superwash with narrow red strips at the top, and with a completely different cable pattern. This works much better than the other vest, but it will be my last garment in a yarn thicker than doubleknit, because it's really true that chunky is as chunky does)
• the slanted gretel tee from Interweave Knits magazine

I have no photos of the cosies because they were all presents and now reside at my brother's place and my mum's place respectively.

I have no photos of the vests because I haven't gotten around to it and I'm seriously considering unravelling the ribbed one and remaking it into something less chunkifying.

But I do have a photo of the tee.

The armholes were worryingly tight, but once I'd wetted and dried it flat they seemed to expand enough to fit my giant armpits.

Getting into the spirit of the RWC

Despite minimal interest in watching sport, I still managed to gather enough enthusiasm to decorate my portion of the office with Rugby World Cup paraphernalia. In our office we all had to blindly choose two participating countries to support, and my picks turned out to be Canada and Namibia.
The Namibian flag is really quite pretty.

Of course, you already know what the Canadian flag looks like.

They've been talking about it in all the schools, so even TLM was excited enough to watch the opening ceremony (mostly just the fireworks display).

So in the next  weeks I'll be checking to see how the All Blacks do in their games, but also supporting the Canadians and Namibians.
I bet Flagz is making tons o' money...http://www.flags.co.nz/products.php?func=14&DPT=c&DCI=5

More style tips from Auntie Violet

Ever since socks and undies have existed, men have known that you can put off laundry day significantly by wearing these items inside out on alternate days.

We can extrapolate this to women's wear, though maybe not with undies because women tend not to like that idea.

Here's one for those of you who like your tights matt, but can't afford cashmere ones - turn the buggers inside out! This also works great if your tights are all bobbly from too many accidental turns in the washing machine.

Genius.

Unseasonally warm

Today I was faced with a dilemma; when you've gone to work in boots and thick tights and the temperature surprises you with a lovely almost-summer warmth, which is worse - sweating it out in the boots and tights, or wearing the boots without the tights (and possibly still be sweaty but at least your knees will be comfortably cool)?

I decided to remove the tights. Fortunately my boots are leather lined, so my feet weren't tooooo bad. I even walked home this way, but it did feel kinda funny to be so intimate with the inner landscape of my footwear.

Though I probably wouldn't have risked it in synthetic boots.

Turning six, getting influenza and touching snow

It's been an eventful few days -  The Little Madam turned six last Thursday and had her birthday party on Saturday. It was a joint party, with her best mate at school who is her "star twin" (because they were born on the same day). The weather was kind, the kids were mostly co-operative and the animal biscuits went down a treat.

The next day was a different story though. At basketball she bopped herself on the nose with her ball, then when we played catch she got the same ball in between her fourth finger and pinky. And then she got sick.

On Monday I took her to the doctor's, where she was diagnosed with the 'flu. I'd been worried when TLM said her neck hurt, but apparently it wasn't due to meningicoccal disease - so that's good.

But once she'd had her first dose of Pamol, she was all lively and alert - enough to enjoy watching it snow (we NEVER get snow here). And now we won't have to go to Mt Ruapehu in mid-Winter for TLM's snow experience.

Knit skirt

This skirt was supposed to be the one that I found in the book Knitting it old school, full of great, tongue-in-cheek re-interpretations of old fashions. (Actually, the best thing in it was the crochet mini dress made out of multi-coloured granny squares, but I'm about 20 years too old and missing about 20 cm in leg length for that one!)

The original pattern was in pumpkin orange, with a big border of diamond shapes along the hem.
But it wasn't to be, because I ended up completely redesigning the thing to get it to fit me properly. Also, I had a hell of a time knitting those shapes without getting any puckering.
Here's a shot of my third and final attempt before giving up -

It was when I was reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting without tears (so apt!), that I realised what the problem was. The pattern had three different colours on the same row, with strands being carried across up to 11 stitches. My last attempt was using a stranded knitting/intarsia combination but it didn't work.
So instead, I picked a number of more traditional Fair Isle patterns to do instead - 

And here's a shot of the whole garment (pardon the weird colour effect - my iPhoto did it and I don't know how to undo it. So the above photo is a more accurate depiction of the colours.

It's a very respectable knee-length, which is another departure from the original. I might even wear it to work on Monday if it's cold enough.

Mug shots of the aforementioned new winter coat

 Here they are at last, photos of the coat which stole my heart and my wallet.

As you can see, the voluminousness of the body of the coat is rather awesome (as in, really big). Though that is nicely balanced by the narrow sleeves (which, strangely, are exactly the right length and size for my arms).

 And here is the back of the coat. The tag calls this coat a cape, and I guess it is - it's a cape with sleeves.

There's no way I would, on paper, wear a cape. But a swing coat  - which this is to my eyes -  I would wear.

Here's a shot of the lining. Can you see that the inside of this rather posh garment is covered in burlesque dancers?



True, it's not the coat that Gok Wan (or any other TV stylist) would have chosen for me me. But it's pretty special and keeps me cosy.

If colds could be exciting

I have the cold that TLM had last weekend, and it's a cold like no other I've ever had.
Like, for instance, the fact that my shoulders and knee joints hurt.
And my teeth hurt!
I got it on Wednesday and now, on Sunday, my teeth don't hurt any more so I can put off visiting the dentist for another few months (or years).

I'm glad that I took this week off so I could hang out with TLM during the second week of her school holidays. I'll be out of action for at least the next few days,  but it'll be nice not to have to stress about using up my sick leave when the real winter has only just set in.

Also I'm getting lots of knitting (and un-knitting) done during this time.

Thank goodness the boy is so good at looking after us!

My new winter coat

I know that, as a short and stockily built woman, the last thing I should be wearing is a massive swing jacket of thick, nubby wool which is topped off with a luxuriant faux-fur collar.

When I saw it hanging in the World shop, I loved the black and red wool fabric and oversized red and gold buttons - but the fur collar wasn't detachable and the cape-like silhouette was going to make me look like the dwarf in Don't Look Back (old movie starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, if you're under 35).

So I tried on a different coat, which was similarly floaty but too long and had giant heart-shaped pockets that didn't open at the top (they unzipped at the sides). And then, because I had nothing to lose I decided to try on the gorgeous red coat with the neck-shortening faux-fur collar and the widening cape shape.

World is not a shop I enter frequently, it being a designer shop where a skirt at 50% discount will still cost over $200 (though it will be beautiful and look like nothing else on the street). So I was unprepared for the sweetly attentive saleswoman, an older woman who knew how to talk me into buying it. She told me how much the original price was.

Suddenly the fur collar was not at all irritating, the voluminous folds "draped beautifully". I lusted after it.

Dear reader, I bought the coat.
I had to - it was, like, 60% off and a World garment.

Of course, by the time I had got it home and tried it on again, I didn't look quite as classy in it as I'd remembered.  But it is still a beautiful coat which looks really special and is wonderfully warm. I don't care that it's not completely flattering, because if I only ever wore what was flattering my wardrobe would be full of black scoopneck long-sleeve t-shirts, black tunic dresses, black tights, black shoes and a black princess-line coat (which, even though a common item, would be expensive because I'd have to have it altered to fit me). Actually, that does describe most of my wardrobe - except for the coat.

When I wear my new coat I am reminded of when I was a teenager accompanying my mother to a shop in town that specialised in real fur, leather and suede coats and jackets. We went more than once and at one point she probably had about four coats of different styles, from that one shop (she always managed to bargain the retailer down to get a good price). While most of her coats have been passed on to others, she still has one coat which gets lots of wear now that she's elderly and feels the cold.  I'm just glad no-one has tried to throw paint on her.

teeny geek

TLM has her own iPad2.

The season of the lurgy

first TLM was sick. Then the boy got what she had, and languished at home for a week (yet still able to produce an impressive amount of work, considering he seemed to be near death). Now I've got what TLM and the boy had. I think. Though fingers crossed it's just going to turn out to be a short-term bout of yucky coughing.

I'm taking the day off work, but not because I'm sick. It's because TLM is sick - again. A mere fortnight after she sneezed and coughed away a wallet-full of money in unused after-school care, the poor creature is now laying about restlessly on the sofa having already vomited twice today and once yesterday.

Such is winter in our household...

The tattoo jumper

Here we go. The boy is proudly wearing his new jumper for the third time in four days! Even though it is still about 10cm too short! Mind you, he's not likely to wear it without a t-shirt underneath, so he doesn't risk any hairy-belly exposure...you can't easily tell from this picture, but the design is a bit bulgy and that's probably because when I floated the black yarn behind the patterned bits, I didn't do so loosely enough. Maybe it will all sort itself out in the wash...

This is the left sleeve, pretty much identical to the right sleeve....

 

 

I knitted it. He wore it.

There's a myth/old wives tale/cautionary tale, that if you knit your boyfriend a jumper (sweater) you will eventually break up. I think it's okay to knit for your husband though, because they're supposedly a bit more committed.
But that's not why I haven't bothered to knit much for the boy - mainly because it takes such a long time to make something that fits a man who's more than six foot tall and has a chest that makes gay tailors swoon.
Well, I did make him that Slytherin scarf. It took about the same amount of merino yarn as two me-sized jumpers. But he wore it, and stayed.

Today, I finally finished the Tribal Sweater (or, in Kiwi, the Tattoo Jumper), the one from the Knitting with balls book.

It was too short all over so I picked up the stitches at all the hems and added a couple of inches. I can do that because the hems are in stocking stitch not rib, and they curl up anyway. Apart from that, and many attempts at knitting the big octopus-thing on the front, it went pretty well. In fact, he's wearing it right now. And he's still here.

I'll post a photo at some stage, I just have to wait for a time when he's wearing it and it's not evening and we're not in a hurry to do something or go somewhere.

the personal politics of caged pork

Ever since I realised that Kiwi pig farmers like to jam their animals into tiny cages, just as much as pig farmers do in the UK (and no doubt a few other parts of the world too), I have refused to eat caged pork.

Even though I miss pork sausages terribly, I don't miss them enough to condone what I think is a cruel practice.
But my mum is a big pork fan, and has only just given up on trying to deceive me into thinking that the stuff she bought at Pak n Save and roasted so deliciously ( going by the smell) is free range.
On the other hand, if I accidentally (really!) buy a sandwich which has pork or ham in in, then I'd rather eat it because to throw it away means that a pig has lived and died in misery for nothing.

Which means I have to be a hypocrite - I'll refuse to buy the stuff or eat my mother's offerings, but if it ends up in my fridge somehow then I'd rather eat it than throw it out.

I still feel a bit guilty though.

As soft as a baby's bottom

Gawd, is this what it's like to have normal, healthy skin?

I finally got myself an appointment with the dermatologist, months after being plagued by horribly anti-social itchiness and the complications that followed.

The day after I started on two types of antihistimines (one for day and one for night) and a steroid lotion (to replace two ineffective ointments), I felt my belly and it was soft and smooth.

In fact, my whole body is soft and smooth. I'm almost in lust with myself - several times a day I catch myself standing in the middle of the lounge feeling my tummy skin.

Okay, so I'm a bit dopey in the mornings because of the antihistamines, but it's a small price to pay to be (relatively) beautiful.

I also found a nice moisturiser that was both effective and completely non-irritating. It's a product which is custom-made for me by the lady who owns the Earth 174 shop in town; she mixed it up from almond oil, vitamin E and manuka honey, and will keep adding stuff to the recipe to see what my skin will handle.

Knitting for the boy

I offered to knit the boy a sweater, to make up for the fact that I seem to spend every free moment knitting (instead of wrapped around the boy or making him cups of tea or getting him a beer). At the library I found exactly three books of knit patterns for men.

The boy liked only one of the sweaters - not the one with cables all over, not the one with Ernie stripes, not the argyle vest... the only one he liked was a plain stocking stocking stitch crew neck with no ribbing at any of the hems, and a giant octopus-like symbol on the chest (plus baby ones on the sleeves).
(I think it was in Knitting with Balls). It was called the Tribal Sweater, although we call it The Tattoo Jumper (because we call sweaters jumpers around here).

So I started with the front, because the back is just boring old stocking stitch all the way up. And man, it is driving me crazy! First time trying to knit from a chart, and you can tell. I've been knitting the octopus back to front and with the leggy bits all pointing in the wrong directions. And then I've knit gaps into the graphic  and the strands are either too tight (causing weird puffines) or too loose (so I get a holey effect). And the tangles!

I've unravelled the thing 3 times now, before turning it into the plain ole back piece. I think I'll have to leave that front to last, when I'm a bit more practiced.

Cables are way easier - and I've only just started learning how to do those.

Happy Mother's Day

I had this idea that we'd be doing something special today, to mark Mother's Day.
But when the boy got up this morning moaning and groaning about dizziness and stomach pain, I knew that wasn't going to happen.
On the other hand, just having a day of full rest seems to have helped him get mostly better (though not well enough to risk eating my cooking). Maybe it was just a bad tv dinner.

And I can't complain that I didn't get a lovely card and a nice present (Gok Wan's Work your Wardrobe). The boy was as sweet as he could manage and TLM, as always, was a delight.
It's quite nice being a mum.

A knitted dress for TLM

I used the free knitting pattern called Oriental Lily, on the Ravelry site. The main part of the dress is made from an acrylic yarn called Robin Paintbox, and the lilac bands are from a single ball of cotton/acrylic Wendy yarn. The acrylic stuff was a bit on the plasticky side, but it was the only one with the right kind of variegated colouring, which I could be sure wouldn't cause any irritation.

holiday snaps

Here's a view of Mt Ruapehu from one of the walks we went on

 I didn't take many photos, and even fewer are sufficiently anonymous to post up on the Internet...

And this is the rather flashy glass basin in the flashy bathroom of our motel unit

Post-vacationette

What a lovely time we had! Who'd have thought that a long weekend in a town known for carrot-farming would be so much fun?

The best bits:

• stopping off at the adventure playground in Levin, a great place that ought to be a tourist destination
• hanging out with our friends
• walks in the fern-y rainforest at the foot of Mt Ruapehu
• TLM being really excited before, during and after our stay
• TLM finding a new best friend in DOTH
• the Easter egg hunt, in which the long-legged boy took on the dual roles as "hare" and Easter bunny, TLM and DOTH kept up with him most impressively, and I impressively kept up with them
• watching Ricky Gervais on Sesame Street singing a "N is for..." lullaby (you had to be there)
• the gorgeous golden-leaved deciduous trees that graced the land on either side of the bridge just before Taihape (on the other side of the big gumboot)

The bits that were less good, to balance out the universe:

• having to come home on Monday
• the rain on Monday, which prevented us from re-visiting Levin's adventure playground
• lunch at McDonalds (again, on Monday) - I used to wonder whether I was just being a food snob; but actually I really hate the food and feel almost ill knowing that I'm completely wasting my calorie allowance by ingesting that stuff
• none of the outlet shops in Otaki were open when we drove by, due to it being ANZAC Day, which was really disappointing because we were in the mood for a bargain-hunting spree and I wanted to check out the Kumfs sale

Technically, TLM and I are still on holiday as I've taken this half of the school holidays off work. So I have another 4 days of blissfully work-free days!

Vacationette

We are going away for the long Easter weekend!

Even better, we are going with Make Tea Not War , Gamester at Large and DOTH (no blog as far as I know) who is similar in age to TLM.

We're not sharing accommodation so we'll get the best of both worlds - company when we desire it, but not when we're itching to go to bed and everyone else wants to stay up late and drink pear cider. Or something.

Yay...

Like taking candy from a stranger

Today, TLM lost some of her childhood innocence.

Some strange guy apparently stood outside the school gate and tried to befriend TLM and her friend by giving them each a chocolate bar.

Having seen the statistics showing that "stranger danger" is a bit of a myth because most assaults on children are by someone known to them, I had not thought to impress on TLM that she should not accept anything from a stranger. How to be wary of strange dogs, yes. How to be wary of strange men...no.

So in that time squeezed in between getting home from work and after-school care, and her bedtime, the boy and I hurriedly tried to catch up on that aspect of parenting.

And TLM would ask things like, 'what if it's a bad man pretending to be a nice man?" and "what if it's a man who's a zookeeper?". In retrospect I think she was trying to find a situation in which it would have been okay to do what she did, which was to accept the chocolate (but it had peanuts in it, so she'd taken a bite and thrown it away). I think she got tired of me repeating the mantra, "if you don't him and we don't know him, run away from him".

She's sad and scared because her world has changed. And so am I.

Humpty Dumpty was a cannon

I've been reading a fascinating book about the meanings of nursery rhythms, Pop goes the Weasel by Albert Jack.
Although I haven't yet gotten to the history behind the eponymous rhyme (hope I used that big word correctly), I can tell you that yes, Humpty was indeed a cannon.

He was deployed in a famous battle between King Whathisname and The Other Guy and located at the top of the tower. As long as it was firing off great balls of lead from there, the home team was unbeatable. But the attacking army managed to do enough damage to the tower to make it fall from its perch and into the swamp below. As you'll have guessed, the King's men weren't able to repair it, and they lost the battle.

Humpty didn't become an egg until he was featured in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, by the way.

This book has been great for introducing (or re-introducing) me to many interesting snippets of English history, and there have been many a-ha moments where nonsensical-seeming rhymes suddenly made an awful lot of sense (and were likely to be about really awful events).

It's actually a lot like a good Bill Bryson book. And that might be the most effective description of this work I can come up with.

In the black

Woo hoo!
Sad as it is to have to squeeze family time into the weekends because we're wage slaves during the week, it's damn good to see there's actually money in my bank account. And that's after I've paid the bills.
Gosh, we can get our porch fixed...

a fairly bad day

Although this is the second consecutive blog post from me that is not upbeat, let me defend myself by telling you that we had a very nice weekend (there was a kids' party on Saturday and a trip to Otari Plant Museum on Sunday - and the weather was fabulous).

But I can't deny that, yes, I had a bad day today.
Firstly, I was feeling a bit down about having a nasty coldsore attack, and the promising tablets that I paid over $30 for did nothing to speed up their recovery (as far as I can tell).
Then, I pulled a muscle in my neck/shoulder region when I got out of the shower.
And I was still recovering from yesterday afternoon's marathon wait at the hospital, where my mother had an appointment at the eye clinic (1.5 hours wait! For a 5 minute consultation!).

But the thing that really made my day stink was when the boss called me into her office to put the kibosh on those "flexible" days (where I leave early one or 2 days per week to pick up TLM, and make up the time at home in the evening) she had agreed to on a temporary basis back in November.


It was as I'd feared 18 months ago when I first offered to increase my work hours due to the boy being out of work - it was easy to go from part time to full time, but possibly impossible to go back the other way again later.

My ideal would be to do short days twice a week and take the pay cut.
The boy's ideal would be for us to keep doing what we are doing for at least another few months.
The bosses ideal would (in my view) be for me to be commit as fully as the full time staff who don't have school age kids.


But then, I never did think we had similar brains.

Long lonely walks by the beach (LLWBTB)

There are beach walks which you do with kids - the public toilet is not improbably far away, the water is shallow, the surfaces are sandy, and the shore is littered with interesting bits of seaweed and shells.

There are beach walks which you do with friends - a bit like the above, but with plenty of potential bonfire locations and enough towel space for everyone.

There are beach walks which you do with a lover - a bit more remote and less family-friendly, no surf to speak of and preferably free of distracting nudists (which, come to think of it, applies to the kids' beach walk but not so much the friends' beach walk).

And then there are the beach walks you do when loneliness weighs heavily on you and you desperately need to be soothed by the sound of waves lapping against the shore. It doesn't have to be remote (my own LLWBTB is next to 4 lanes of traffic speeding to or from the airport), but it can't be very popular. Because all those people and their chatter get in the way between you and the water sounds. If it's lined by magnificent pieces of public art, then all the better to give you an alternative subject of contemplation.

Even though we might wish we didn't need a good LLWBTB, we should be glad to have one.

cardigan number 3

It was winter yesterday and today. Although I'm fully expecting it to warm up again towards the end of the week, I've been given a sharp reminder of just how much I dislike being cold.

So, while I started making a linen tunic a week ago, I've also started to make this cardigan - and hopefully this time I'll complete it and want to wear it outside the house (the first attempt has a ripply button band and desperately needs shaping, the second didn't even get that far because I used a non-shrinking yarn and a pattern designed for yarn that shrinks 10% in the wash).

I probably won't be quite as staunch about ripping out and re-doing - like, I'll do that if I drop a stitch but not if the stitches differ in size by a few nano metres.  I'm using a cotton/acrylic blend by Panda, in bright red. Quite possibly I've chose a colour that will look far better on TLM...

Weekend fun - live animals and sleepover essentials

Yesterday we went out to Staglands, which is a wildlife-ish park about an hour or so's drive away. I've been wanting to take TLM there since she was a toddler, but wanted to wait until she was too old for daytime naps. Then we forgot about it for a couple of years...

Anyway I think I enjoyed it at least as much as TLM did - we oohed over the baby kune kune pigs, I was followed by vibrantly-coloured birds that made me think of flying fabric swatches, TLM got her photo taken with her head stuck in the stocks (that wooden thing that imprisons you by the neck and wrists), and I was butted by the head of a friendly retired Clydesdale horse.

The only negative thing about the whole trip was the wasp that kept buzzing around us while we lunched at the cafe. I was most annoyed at having to leave without finishing my nachos...

And today we went shopping for a new booster car seat for TLM, plus a bunk bed (so she can have a friend over for a sleepover). We ended up getting a metal-framed child's bed with a trundler instead, to allay my fears that whoever is in the top bunk might fall down the ladder during a midnight trip to the toilet and break her neck...

TLM was mightily distracted by the super-girly bed linen, but I promised we'd get her some of that if she'd only focus on the blimmin' beds.

Of course, now we'll have to get whole new sets of bedlinen and duvets etc, since the current stuff is only big enough for an American-sized cot (which I think actually means Texas-sized).

Planned weekend fun - it's the woman's job

We seemed to be in a bit of a rut at the weekends. The boy would sleep in until 9.30 or 10; TLM and I would either go out in the morning and be back with lunch by the time he was up and about; half of the afternoon was spent waiting for TLM to have her quiet time (usually a DVD on the sofa); and by then we'd have only an hour or two to do something together before it was time for TLM's dinner-bath-bedtime.

I'd often suggest to the boy that we do something fun. Sometimes I even suggested a specific activity, like going to Staglands (a wildlife park/farm park). Then I'd be disappointed when the weekend came and went, with no mention of it from the boy.

Then I found out that he'd been waiting for me to organise these things.

So last weekend we all went to a gallery out of town and marveled at an exhibition of fantasy art (after which the boy went home while TLM and I stayed in town to watch some Chinese New Year performances).

This weekend we'd intended to go for a bush walk up the hill and take a proper picnic (by 'proper' I mean with fresh rolls and nice sandwich fillings, rather the usual box of biscuits and two bottles of tap water).

But it turned out to be my nephew's birthday (I'm a bad auntie), so instead we went shopping for his present and went to their house to give it to him. Tomorrow I'll probably take TLM to the watch the CNY parade, but the boy is not a parade sorta guy so he'll probably be at home working.

Maybe next week maybe we'll go to Staglands.

Reasons for cheer

I was brought up to look at the dark and scary side of life (and there's probably a bit of genetics in there too). Although this should have been an advantage if I were a blues singer or maker of indie movies - well I'm neither.
So I have been researching how to be cheerful on the 'Net and the first five minutes have actually been quite fruitful.

Out of the 11 reasons to be cheerful listed on the lifehack webpage, I actually score pretty well. I guess I just need to see this more often:

1. I'm alive
2. my health - I wouldn't be the ideal human specimen that every alien probe dreams of, but then I don't have any life threatening diseases and, no matter how much I've moaned about my various health complaints, at least I can pass for normal most of the time. 
3. I'm in a relationship with someone I love and who loves me
4. I have family - a child, a parent (apparently a plus even if she knows how to push all my insanity buttons), a sibling, an in-law who is amazing, and a great nephew and niece
5. I am in full time employment (a plus just 'cos I can't afford not to be)
6. I'm doing something that adds value to society (by working for a non-profit)
7. I can look back on my life and be proud of certain achievements (my travels, my efforts at painting, writing and sewing)
8. I have something to look forward to (the day the boy is secure enough in his employment that I can go part-time, a trip to the UK to visit the boy's family - whenever they may be)
9. a plan for the future - not really
10. financial security - only just
11. friends - I have been sadly slack in keeping in touch with my friends, but have been working on that. I managed to call two friends last month which is better that I've done in the previous 6 months.

That's about 7/11 and nothing to be sneezed at.
None of the above are especially glamorous or exciting, but I read somewhere that it's the little stuff that keeps us glad to be alive. I'm all for that.

If I could have just one belated new year's resolution...

it would be to go part time again this year.

I've become far to precious with my time as I've gotten older and busier, jealousy portioning out my non-working, non-chore-doing, non-sleeping hours like a lost mountaineer trying to survive on half a peanut slab last until the rescuers arrive.

Because there's not much point being stingy with the stuff if it's not enough to give you pleasure.

On the other hand, I don't want to give up any of my interests, nor deprive myself of time with the people I like to be with.

Something has got to give. I hope it can be my work hours.

pedestrians who don't look when crossing the street

There's been a bit of kerfuffle over the number of pedestrians who've been hit by buses since Manners St was changed from a one-way to a two-way street.

The street is well-served by traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, and buses aren't exactly hard to see.

So my conclusion is this - it's the gods' way of punishing jay-walkers.

Germ warfare

My brother won his battle with the horrible S. aureous bacteria. Though he was only allowed to go home yesterday, so he was in hospital for maybe three weeks. And he still isn't walking normally because his' back is stuffed from him being laid out flat for days and days.

My own battle, though far less serious, is ongoing. Only a week or so after recovering from the pimple-from-hell on my back, I now have one on my right arm. I tried bathing it in anti-bacterial solution every night this week, but Mr and Mrs S. aureous merely laughed in my face and turned up the heater.

Now, I'm no conspiracy-theorist - but I reckon there may be some kind of outbreak going on here. My brother, when he was in ICU, shared with several other patients with similar afflictions to his own. And when I tried to buy a new bottle of the anti-bacterial solution at the pharmacy, I was told they'd had a run on the stuff.

Someone is trying to kill the 10% of us who have vulnerable body bits.

A day in the tropics

You'd think it was spring rather than mid-Summer - one day it's cool enough to need a jacket, the next day it's warm enough to briefly consider going to work in shorts and a singlet.

It was apparently 29 degrees Celsius today, which is extreme in itself ('round these parts, if it's more than 25 degrees it's a heatwave). But it was super-muggy all day and then we got torrential rain.

It's just like being in Bangkok, except that you aren't on holiday, there aren't any tuk-tuks and the locals aren't smiling as much.

It's been a long week

The first full working week since Christmas (which for me started in mid-December when school finished for the year) has been long and hard.

First, I've had to spend most of each working day answering supports calls emails about really basic technical things that those people should know how to do already.

Then, I notice a pimple on my back that just keeps getting bigger and more painful until I have to admit that I be getting another visit from the cellulitus fairy (last time was about 4 years ago).

But the worse thing that's happened this week is that my brother has been really sick with a bacterial infection he picked up, supposedly through a big cut in his hand while working on his house. He was in ICU for the better part of the week (since Sunday), while the doctors operated on him to drain unmentionable fluids from various parts of his body.

We were only allowed to see him for the first time last night. Of course, my mum insisted on taking along some home-cooked food to supplement the hospital meals. But then later one of the nurses told us off because apparently it's taking up too much space in the staff fridge (there being no fridge for hospital patients). Not that my bro has had much of an appetite anyway, but you know mothers worry about their kids not eating enough...

Anyway, we were told he'd probably still be in hospital for several more days at least. So I guess next week will be another long one.

Another denim reconstruction

So here is the tunic I made from two pairs of old jeans plus some scrap denim. I used a Simplicity 'Project Runway' sewing pattern, but don't ask me what the number of it is because my sister-out-law like the tunic so much she's borrowed the pattern and taken it away... Did you notice that I've only worn it one day and there are already wrinkles at the midsection? Well, it just so happens that those wrinkles used to be the backs of the boy's knees.

The front piece is from the boy's old jeans; the back is from one of my own old pairs; and the dark side panels and pockets are from some stretch denim scraps left over from my last attempt at trousers. Sorry if you noticed the glimpse of crepe-y armpit in this picture...

The feature of this design is really the rounded neck band, the button used to fasten it (it's actually sewn down - there's no buttonhole), and the resulting keyhole at the upper chest which I presume is supposed to be sexy without being revealing. The button is a spare that I had from when I was making my spring coat. I didn't do a great job of making the ends of the band perfectly rounded, but it'll have to do. I spent so much time top-stitching, taking in the torso (then re-topstitching) and putting in the zip only to rip it out again, that after a while I just wanted to finish it and move on with my life.

I used this lovely printed voile to line the pockets and the neck band. The hem also has a facing, but for that I used a lime green bit of quilting cotton (which I forgot to take a photo of).

Apart from the slightly Jetsons-look due to the overly-thick shoulder parts of the neck band, I'm really happy with the garment. I've already bought two more pieces of fabric (in bright violet and bright turquoise - Arthur Toye's was having a sale) to make long-sleeved versions of this - that is, when I get my pattern back. One thing to note, if you are a rectangular shape, is that by the time you've accommodated for the wider waist you won't need a zip to get in and out of it!

home made grease

One of my Christmas presents was the book, 'Grow your own drugs: A year with James Wong', which is based on his television series.

Contrary to initial expectations, the television series is not a course for people who wish to cultivate their own marijuana and opium supplies. It's all about using commonly found plants (commonly found in the UK anyway - not sure about New Zealand) to make medicines, skincare and cosmetics.

I found it quite fascinating. My one gripe is that James Wong - boyishly handsome as he is - always seems to be talking to someone over the camera man's shoulder rather than to the camera, which I find really distracting (though not spooky, which is how I find those people with that particular type of blue eyes who look as they are staring right through you).

Anyway, the book I have is the sequel to the book of the series. It's got a number of recipes for a variety of skin ailments and allergies, as well as for moisturisers and hair conditioners. It's even got one for furniture polish!

So one day I plan to get myself some basic equipment and ingredients, and mix myself up some home made moisturiser (to start with anyway). Though that might have to wait until I've finished my sewing projects. Possibly after it's become too cold to sew, but before it's cold enough to want to knit. Well, some time....

...and that's what I did in my holidays

I think anyone who has ever been in a Western school must have had to write at least one 'What I did in the holidays' essay.

The only such essay of mine which attracted praise, was a 'What I did in the weekend' variation, which went a bit like "It was really boring. There was nothing to do." Go figure.

Well, today was the last day of my Christmas/New Year holiday, and it was not spectacularly eventful. But I had fun, the boy had fun and TLM definitely had fun (her holiday goes on for another month though, so it'll be interesting to see whether it goes downhill when she has to attend her school holiday programme):

• We went to the zoo 4 times in about a week and a half.
• We went to the beach the same number of times.
• I got to start and finish a tunic in a voile fabric of a mesmerising navy shot with gold, as well as start and nearly finish a sleeveless tunic made from 2 pairs of old jeans plus miscellaneous denim remnants (photos coming at some stage).
• We played new games on the Wii, including TLM's and my current favourite (because we win a lot) which is a sword-slashing test of reflexes and doesn't require much button-pushing (great for non-gamers like me).
• And that doesn't include Christmas itself, nor New Year's dinner at my mum's.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

Happy New Year!

Christmas in a pagan/agnostic/Santa-ist household

I hope you've all had an enjoyable Christmas (or other appropriate holiday).

It was never a big-deal time of the year for me, growing up. Maybe it's because our mum didn't bother with presents or Christmas decorations, and I always had to spend hours writing polite cards to rellies in Hong Kong (or anyone else who sent us one - once we got a card from a 'relative' up the coast and to this day none of us know who on earth this person is).

'It's probably because your family isn't Christian', you might say. Well, that argument does have weight. Except my mum was reborn about ten years ago and the only thing that changed was that she started saying grace before meals.

Also, the boy is very big on Christmas and he's a pagan. Although, as a pagan he is at least highly aware of the various ancient religions whose festivals were usurped by the Christian one.

So ever since the boy has been in my life, Christmas has been a big deal. And ever since TLM was born Christmas has been a very big deal. In fact, TLM began searching for signs of Christmas months ago, and was the first to spot any pine tree, shiny bauble or red/green colour combo in any shop we visited.

TLM spent all Christmas morning unwrapping presents and trying them out. So far (partly due to crappy weather curtailing scooter practice) the one with the most play-time is the Harumika fashion design set. She got the starter set consisting of a mannequin, 3 pieces of punk-esque fabric, and a range of tiny accessories. I added a bunch of offcuts from my past dressmaking efforts.
Actually, I think I have probably played with it as much as she has...

...though the photos are of TLM's designs.
I just went to their website and there's a version with legs. I'll ask the boy to get me that one for my birthday.

Breaking a lifetime habit

For years now, I have been intrigued by the possibility of going shampoo-free. At first, I couldn't believe you could simply stop washing your hair, and it would eventually become self-cleaning. And then I thought, what a big con those drug and cosmetic companies have on us all, producing unnecessary smellies that we supposedly need. (Of course, if you use a lot of styling products, maybe you do need to shampoo often - but then it's still a big con and a massive money-maker for those companies!)

Finally, after a lifetime of daily shampooing, and just as my holidays have started, I just stopped.
Well, in actual fact I went three days without a hair wash, and the next time around I am going to wait 4 days (that brings me up to Christmas Day - I should probably try to be fresh for Christmas Day). And after that I am going to try going a whole week without a shampoo.

After that I'm back at work, so it'll be interesting whether I can keep it up under the pressure to still look presentable.

The weird thing is, I was expecting to get the major greasies - but I haven't at all. I reckon my scalp has probably gotten increasingly drier as I've gotten older (thereby producing less sebum) and I just haven't noticed!
It's so cool that I can now save money on shampoo, and not have to worry about adding hair products to my skincare quest.

You know your kid has been watching too much Ben 10...

...when the plumber arrives to fix a leaky pipe under the house, and you have to explain, "No, TLM, not that kind of plumber"*.



*For those without young kids, in Ben 10 plumbers are people with special powers whose responsibilities including protecting the Earth from hostile aliens

Keeping it Simple for now (Actually a review of REN sensitive skin products)

I trialled two products from the REN skincare range - the Ultra Calm Global Protection Day Cream and Ultra Calm Cleansing Milk.
REN is from the UK - I was attracted to them because they don't test on animals, and avoid using all those bad-rep chemicals that makers of organic cosmetics love to hate - parabens, petrochemicals etc - for the sake of  skin-friendliness. They might be organic too, but that wasn't my focus.

I was quite astonished when, after emailing them to ask whether REN is available in New Zealand, the customer services person offered to ship me some samples - all the way to the other end of the Earth. When they arrived I was astounded that such small containers existed. But I can't complain.

Both products came in tiny plasticky tubes. They shared a herby smell that made me suspicious, but it wasn't a perfume-y smell so I'll forgive them.

Now, if I'd gotten larger amounts, I would have been able to test them on my face properly. As it was, there was enough to either patch test, or to smear sparingly. So sparing smearing was what I opted for.

The cleanser was lovely to use. It left my skin feeling completely un-assaulted.
The moisturiser was just as gentle, but unfortunately was not emollient enough. I could have gone through a couple of those tubelets just in one application, and would have needed a top-up soon after.

So I will stick with my Simple Regeneration Age-resisting day cream with spf, which is similar in gentleness and emollience, but costs $27.50 for 50ml. The REN moisturiser, on the other hand, costs a whopping $111 for a bottle of indeterminate size which couldn't possibly be 200ml. Actually, the REN website displays a 50ml bottle, so if we assume that it only comes in one size, it's, like, 4 times the cost of the Simple product.

Maybe one day, when I am a millionaire, I will shell out for the REN bottle to try over several days, and maybe I will realise that the stuff is actually better than I thought. Until then, I will stick with the thing that is affordable and is good-enough-for-now.

Man's shirt, feminised. Somewhat.

After the fiasco of the last time I tried to refashion a men's dress shirt, it was a very long time before I set to on the other shirt that the boy gave me. This time around, I used a tunic sewing pattern (New Look 6808) to feminise this shirt. I sewed the front down so that it's now a pullover rather than a button-down, omitted the back and front darts (but left in the bust darts) for a loose fit, and used a contrast fabric for the sleeve and neck facings. The  contrast fabric was cut from a piece of skirt material that used to belong to the boy's lovely mum, which I never used because the print is too big for my body size. From the front, I'd say it was a success.

From the side, it's okay - not fab, not hideous.

But from the back I look like man...

Child development by DVD

The Little Madam has thankfully gotten over her obsession with Barbie DVDs - at least for the time being.

The boy has been diverting her with Dungeons and Dragons - the animated series from the 80's(?) - and Star Wars - Clone Wars (ew yuck!).

Then he got her into the first Harry Potter movie, which she loved. She likes the second one too, but gets freaked out at the scene when Harry and Ron drink polyjuice potion and morph into Goyle and Crabb (Draco Malfoy's brain-shy sidekicks).

For a coupla days, all she wanted to watch was my recording of the televised World of Wearable Arts show. It shouldn't be surprising, because it's full of fantastic, whimsical costumes.

And now she's a fan of The Princess Bride. My only criticism of this movie is that there's only one main female character, and she's utterly passive. But it's witty and got scary bits as well as the occasional kissing, so I'll let it go - as long as TLM also watches something with strong female characters in it.

Unaccustomed social activity

It's been quite a busy weekend.
Friday, my workplace had an all-day Christmas do, which entailed a train ride up north to a lovely hotel/park complex where we frolicked in the sun and then had an amazing lunch before napping on the ride home. We had terrific weather, and I only slightly regretted not bringing my togs with me (I still got wet - the naughty swimmers made sure of that).

Saturday morning TLM and I went shopping for a birthday present, to take to a party that afternoon. While there I managed to sneakily also buy a cute tooth-box for TLM's Christmas present for Sunday's party (see below). We also spent a good hour painting a large sheet of paper to wrap our friend's present it. I had at least as much fun as she did. By the time we got home we had just enough time to vacuum the house before my niece showed up for a sleepover. (But it turned out that this was her first sleepover away from her mum, and she ended up going home at about ten. Which meant that TLM was 3 hours late to bed...)

Sunday, TLM and I attended a Christmas party for her Chinese language school. And then I was ready for another nap.

Uh huh honey honey

And tonight I resumed my Googling for skincare and eczema remedies.It's funny that, although I've always been regarded as a somewhat analytical person, I've never tried very hard to research more about my condition. Perhaps I should blame it on my authority-fearing nice-Cantonese-girl upbringing, but I pretty much have always just relied on whatever my doctor suggested. I suppose it's never too late to search and explore the variety of snake oils out there, looking for something that will work until it stops working.

Tonight, I tried smearing some honey on an irritated area of my hand. Right away, it started stinging. But then it stopped stinging, and stopped itching too. And this wasn't even the famous Manuka honey.

I can't exactly smear this stuff on like moisturizer - I'd be covered in insects and stuff as soon as I stepped out the door. But it does give me a new avenue of active skincare ingredients to try out.