a week maybe a long time in politics...

But 2 1/2 weeks is a long time in blogging!

I'm a bad blogger... a bad bad bad blogger!

But Ive been a busy one what with starting back to work at the fabulous soon-to-be-open Altona North Library (2pm March 16th!) and with poor Little Miss having an operation to release of the right trigger thumb. Poor little brave girl will finally be able to give us the thumbs up!

As the Fonz says; EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH

Also been doing a lot of reading... someone asked me the other day at work how I'm able to get through a book a week with two little kids... I say "It's all about your priorities!"

Ive not long finished this cute book, A true history of the Hula Hoop by Judith Lanigan. It’s a very sweet book basically covering 3 intersecting stories as well as a little non-fiction research into... you guessed it, the history of the hula-hoop! And the little town about an hour from Melbourne with the historic cinema sounds VERY familiar!

I'm currently reading Stealing Picasso by Anson Cameron which I would probably be enjoying a lot more if I didn't keep picking bloody holes in it all the time! Its a novel based around the stealing of the Weeping Woman from the NGV back in 1986 (something which has always intrigued me and I believe makes the painting a lot more interesting, but I think it's funny that I worked at the NGV for over a year and you never heard anything about it nor found any mention in any of the books they produced!) anyways, I keep picking at things like when the book says its free to get into the gallery but back then it wasn't, and now there's this whole weird bit about a Michael Jackson impersonator who is struggling because of the child abuse allegations coming out but that wasn't until the 90's... why cant I just read it and enjoy it!!!!

Warman Special

The latest from creation from Hot Roddings mad genius...
You can also check out the Warman special in the latest Street Machine magaizine (Pg 60), it’s a sweet story of a grandfathers inspiration, especially when his own father said “those cars will get you nowhere boy!”

Just in case your interested...

http://www.rarespareslegend.com.au/Legends/Rod-Hadfield.htm

Happiest room in the house...

Regular readers of my blog will know I have traveled to several different countries. I therefore think I am in a good position to comment of the state of toilets throughout the western world... Not the state as in someone missed the seat and left the stall filthy... I mean the actual toilet itself...

The worst country for toilets would have to be the States... they seem to have a fascination with self flushing toilets, particuly in airports... maybe air travellers have a hard time remembering to press the button or perhaps its a germ thing I don't know, but if your anything like me who is a bit of a mover arounderer on the loo (especially with a number 2 where sometimes it needs a little help and guidance!) you end up with a wet bum. Not to mention if you accidentally drop something in and jump off the seat to collect it! Tip from me - you can trick them by holding your hand over the sensor, not always the most comfortable position but better than a surprise bidet!

Best country for toilets, Japan! Soft, heated seats. Washbasins that utilise your hand washing water, music, fake sounds for the shy... bottom heaven!

Another Seriously Hot Librarian!

If you think us librarians are all daggy nerds, check out Peggy Wilkins... Hot librarian and Playboy collector... my kind of lady!

Mr. Stubby Holder...

Kind of makes me laught that a man who doesn't drink should end up on a stubby holder!

No need to smoke them Winnie Blues...

Check out these super cute Cigerette sized literature... wear 'em in your rolled up T-shirt sleeve like a pack of Winnie Blues!

Pimped and in Print!

Check it out... my pimped up shopping trolley has made it into print!

(Cruzin Magazine February 2010 Pg. 6 )

P.S. Me and the girls made it into Rods Ramblings too!

Gems from the Bargain bin...

Picked up these two gems from the $1 bin outside Book Heaven in Campbells Creek today...

20th century woman by Dr. Eustace Chesser, A 1969 "Study of the English woman, a book which examines the sexual behaviour and conditioning of women today... their attitudes to pre-marital sex are shown in the light of the recent increase in sexual intercourse between unmarried couples."

But really I just bought it for the cover!

And...

The first Ms. Reader: how women are changing their lives - in work, sex, politics, love, power and life styles. An anthology of articles.

But what I really want to know is if I send off the card inside can I still get a groovy Ms. "The Liberated Woman's Bag!" complete with "The liberated Woman's Appointment Calender for 1974"?

Arrrr me hearties....

Here's an article on how Librarians are the "worst sort of Pirates" as their book lending practices are costing the publishing industry $1 Trillion!

And speaking of Pirates and Here's a blog called Confessions of a Book Pirate.

Oh and when I was trying to find that one again, I came across this one called The.effing.librarian who also wants to become a pirate librarian.

I love pirates... the old AARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH/Pieces of Eights/Jolly Roger kind of Pirates I mean.

I got really excited one day when working in the big-corporate-treat-your-staff-like-crap bookstore because this lady came in doing research on female pirates. Female Pirates!!! How Ace!! (actually there were a couple of famous female pirates including Mary Read and Anne Bonny) A few months later the same lady came in for an interview and when asked to describe a time that she received excellent customer service relayed the story of me and the female pirates. Hooray!

P.S. don't forget International talk like a pirate day is September 19th every year!

Keep walking...

Ive been trying to lose weight. I want to lose 16kgs of post baby weight. Ive always been one of those people who love 'Fat Chicks' (to an extent!) and bagged out people who are always obsessing about their weight. I'm so fat... boring boring boring! Just be happy in yourself etc. etc. etc. Unfortunately I'm not happy in myself at the moment. My self confidence is at second to all time low, lethargic, tired, depressed and just cant be bothered!

Anyways, was going for my every-second-nightly walk when someone yelled out to me... not wolf-whistled or even a "show us your tits", but yelled out "keep walking"!

soooo depressing!

Meet our new friend...

Kind of ironic really, that my father-in-law, who likes to hunt rabbits... as does the boy... should get a rabbit for Little Miss!

Obsessive/Compulsive Knitting...

Ive always had a bit of an obsessive, addictive personality, at the moment, it’s knitting which may come as a surprise to many people who have know me in my ‘past lives’. But you know what, I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I taught myself from a book and seem to be pretty good at it. I can just make up patterns as I go and they actually do come out sort of like what Ive seen in my head. It took me a long time to find anything that I felt I was good at (photography in year 11 media studies class was the first time I felt it!)

Combined with my other obsession at the moment which is reading, I picked up its my party and I'll knit if I want to (Sharon Aris) and Friday Night Knitting Club (Kate Jacobs), non and fiction respectively...

Oh and my latest project is knitting a book bag to keep said books from being torn/scratched/whatever in my bag (because one must carry a book EVERYWHERE one goes... if only I could figure out a way to read and knit at the same time!!!???)

Another Fab knitting book I discovered brings in another of my favourite things... Knockdown knits inspired by Roller Derby with patterns for slings and broken arm sweaters! It's just such a pity Roller Derby has only really started to happen in Melbourne around the same time that I had to go and have babies and stuff that are supposed to make you all grown up and responsible and shit like that... sucks...

all the way home...

Here's a story for you...

Little miss has been having several "accidents" lately. I put "Accidents" in "inverted commas" because they always seem to occur either when I am busy with bubba-ista or just after little miss has got into trouble for something!

I made a decision recently that instead of trying to get my stuff done and getting frustrated with a kiddy under my feet, I need to focus my attention on her, do lots of stuff in the morning to get her tired out so she will have a sleep so I can then get my stuff done!

So my big idea this particular day is we will go on an adventure to one of those indoor play centres where Little Miss can run (jump/climb etc.) wild. So she's happily playing for a while in the under 4 area's which is great considering she's 3... then she spies the big kids/over 4's area... uh oh... she takes no for an answer for a little while and goes off to play some more, at least that's what I think... but now I realise that little brain was just biding time and formulating a plan.

"Mum... I want a drink"
"OK out you come" (runs over to the other side)
"Do you need to go to the toilet"
"No"
"Are you sure"
"Yes"
"Are you really sure"
"Yes"
"You defiantly don't want to go to the toilet then"
"No"
"OK"

Then... RUN, off she goes, straight to the top of the big kids/strictly over 4's area. and... well... pisses herself.

So here I go, shoes off, leaving pram, baby, bag etc unattended, up to the top of the tower, trying to clean up wee with just a wet pair of shorts and undies. Then I have to go to the staff "um, well, my daughter has just pissed herself in the top of the area she's not meant to be in!..." then of course, after all that the toddler area just has no appeal and we want to go home. So big adventure that was supposed to take up our whole morning and we are home after 40 minutes.

But good things do come out of frustrating situations. I was telling this story to my friend C. Single mum of two kids (I do not know how she does it!) And she gave me a little pep talk. She said "we put too much pressure on ourselves sometimes, If your kids are safely in bed at the end of the day, they are fed, healthy and happy then we have done our jobs. The fact that you made it out to the play centre at all with a 3 year old and a 3 month old is enough to be proud of!"

OK so I am still going to try for the focused attention thing, but I need to give myself some slack too. Sometimes it's hard when your tired and your attention is being pulled in many different directions to feel you are doing a good job. We all need friends like C to remind us and put things into perspective sometimes!

X...Y...zzzzzzzzzzzz

Ive never really known where I fitted into the world, I seem to be stuck in the middle of everything from my star sign (right on the cusp of Cancer and Leo) to my generation, born right at the ‘crossover’ point of Generations X and Y. I always thought I was Gen X, 'the first generation not to be looking forward to having things better than their parents'. I came of age in the doom and gloom economic times of the early 90’s, where if you didn’t go to uni you would never get a job, and if you took some time off uni you’ll never go back. So I went, but never really knew where it was going to get me and spent my twenties wandering around aimlessly with a string of jobs that I certainly didn’t need my uni degree to get. I subsequently spent most my twenties feeling guilty. Now, apparently it’s an acceptable Gen Y trait to spend your twenties wandering the world and moving in and out of home.

And what of the generation gap? In XYZ: the new rules of generational warfare, Michael Grose tells me the generation gap has widened but my mum and I always felt that it had reduced from her own experience due to the shared “teenage” experience, and most of all, the advent of Rock and Roll. That music joined the baby boomers to all that came after. But then again I had a bit of an unhealthy fascination with all things 50’s and 60’s when I was growing up so maybe its just me!

So anyways, I still don’t know where I fit into the world but at least I don’t feel guilty about it anymore, oh and I finally went back to uni 10 years later when I finally figured out what I wanted to do and I actually have a job that I need my degree for. And if anyone asked my advice I would say to defiantly take time off between school and uni!!!

So now Mr Grose tells me there's generation Z, which includes all those 'tweenies' that marketers love so much. But that book is a few years old now and Douglas Copeland who started all this has bought out a book called Generation A...

Alli on the Telli

Check me out in my starring role (along with Katie D. in a cameo appearance!) in the "Making of the Librarians" special on disc 2 of the Second Series.

This is where I actually was in the TV show in the very back row of the awards ceremony.

Here's me and Miss D. sticky-beaking when they were filming on location at Newport library.

And here we are being interviewed...

Three good books...

I have been very busy reading of late... Iv'e been very lucky as three of my favourite Authors have released new books in the last few months;

Augusten Burroughs You better not cry

I came across Running with scissors purely by the book cover (yes you can judge... sometimes!) I bought it as a gift for my brother (but of course I read it first!!!) I love him! particuly his two collections of short essays Magical thinking and Possible side effects. (Stand out bit for me; when he's a kid and he wants to pray for something so he uses Jesus's full name which he has heard his parents use 'Jesus Fucking Christ'). My other favourite is Sellevision, his only novel (that I know about) which I think is the funniest book I have ever read, EVER!

Anyways, the latest is more short essays, this time about Christmas, which has always been a contentious time in my family... and with my brother being particuly scrooge-like, I got him this one for Christmas (and of course, again, read it first!). It's OK, I enjoyed it but I think only because I have read the others and know his background, I don't think you would get so much out of it if you came to this one cold. So read his others first, and enjoy!

I am kicking myself that I missed seeing Augusten at the Melbourne writers festival, last year? year before? due to my inability to get it together at the time!

P.S. Here's his website!

Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years

My Sister in law got me this for Christmas after I hinted to the boy... well told him I wanted it after he told her he didn't have any ideas of what she could get me! When she asked about it in the bookshop for 'the new Adrian Mole book', the young sales assistant said, hmmm Adrian Mole, Ive never heard of that author! Who the hell hasn't heard of the Adrian Mole books! (too many people unfortunately!!!)

Anyways, I have written here before of my love of these books, and my great disappointment of the last release The Lost Diaries which I believe was just cobbled together for the sake of it and which didn't even fit in with some of the details of the other books (man I sound like one of those science fiction geeks now!) So I was a little apprehensive about this one, but it was great! Certainly darker than the previous books, with many loose ends still hanging which makes me think/hope there is more to come! considering I heard that she said the after AM and the WMD's there would be no more Mole books, one can only hope!

PPS. Here's the Mole website...

Nick Hornby's Juliet, Naked

I only started this one today, but it's shaping up to be Nick H at his High Fidelity/Fever Pitch best. I haven't really enjoyed his last couple of books, well, they've been OK but only OK if they were were written by a lesser author.

I came across Nick Hornby, I am embarrassed to say, because of the High Fidelity movie, I went to see it with a new male friend who I had a bit of a crush on and made an embarrassment of myself because of! (who knew that going to see a movie and having Pizza afterwards could be misconstrued as a DATE!) Anyways... something good came out of it, I read the book of HF and Fever Pitch and was hooked!

PPPS. While I'm at it...

M.I.A!

I'm disgusted in myself... over two weeks since I've touched the blog... and I didn't even bother writing anything on that post! What the hell has got into me, it's not that I haven't been inspired, I am always thinking of things to write about, it's the actually getting them down on the keyboard bit that has been escaping me lately! Of course I couldn't really tell you what the hell I've been doing with that time (though Crazy Christmas, two kids and a couple of good books might explain some of the time away!)

I've got a touch of the New Years Eve melancholia today... happens every year, just one of those irrational things about me that I can't really explain. NYE just seems to bring out strange emotions in me. Before the boy came along I used to put it down to loneliness, everybody seems to be out for themselves, although I did receive one very impractical invitation this year, not so easy with two bubbadoos, though if the boy was more supportive/less socially inept it may have been an option! I tend to have a good cry on NYE, maybe it will do me some good as I've also been full of anger lately. Hormones still going crazy perhaps? And tiredness, which may have something to do with being pretty much awake from 4.30 this morning with one or the other child. The heat is pissing me off, I have decided just yesterday I am a winter person! Rant Rant Rant, there's nothing more boring really... no wonder I haven't written in a while!!!

So anyways... today will be an at home PJ day and tomorrow lets hope I have gotten over myself!!!

HNY everyone!!!

I'd rather be Knitting!

He He He He...

All available from Cafe Press!

All I want for christmas...

Well, some of anyway!