Special home delivery: A different Mother's Day
We're three mums coming together to help you care for your mum. And we're changing the daily lives of mums with intellectual disability at the same time.
My career change to security hacker
I hadn't particularly been contemplating a career change. I certainly hadn't considered my skills as a security hacker. At the time I was only interested in taking the junior recipe testers to the Easter Show. Turns out I have a hidden talent...
Australia's Biggest (and most beautiful!) Morning Tea
Sydney catering company Dinner on the Table hosted an Australia's Biggest (and most beautiful!) Morning Tea event last Thursday in collaboration with the Hills Super Centre. We raised money for cancer research, delivered ready made meals for families living with disability, and ate a beautiful morning tea together.
Pinterest girl wannabe
I am not a natural Pinterest girl. I am a Pinterest girl wannabe. I do like a good hair-brained scheme, and I am learning that Pinterest is a veritable treasure trove of creative ideas. And, some years after I created a Pinterest profile I can now reliably pin something and find it again later.
This weekend we hosted a sleepover birthday party for a newly 9 year old junior recipe tester. Quite late in the planning I thought it would be fun to turn our lounge room, into which 7 juniors were sardined, into a tent. Turns out that tent pegs and carpet aren't a thing, and so I settled for the creation of a canopy instead.
How hard could it be?
The five stages of exiting
In 1969, pre-eminent psychologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross published her model of grief, popularly known as the five stages of grief. The stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Recently, it has occurred to me that this model not only applies to the experience of illness and dying. It is equally descriptive when considering the five stages of exiting the house in the morning. Upon this realisation, I began conducting my own empirical studies, approximately 4-5 times a week. The study, an action research project in which I am an unwilling and entrapped participant, commences usually just after breakfast, sometime between 7.20 and 7.30 each morning. It is at this time that I announce to the junior recipe testers what time we will depart for their...
Boys are born competent. Girls have to prove they are
"Boys are born competent. Girls have to prove they are," someone once said to me. I was horrified. Surely that wasn't true? Last week I attended the junior recipe testers' swimming carnival. I helped with timekeeping, which was both fun and nerve-wracking in equal measure. My juniors swam in their age races, I got to watch and cheer from close quarters, and while neither are currently showing promise as the next Australian champion, they both did well. My daughter did very well in her age group, recording one of the fastest freestyle times for her age, and the fastest for her house. This qualified her for the 4 x 50m relay. My son also qualified, although not as far up the...
Turning into my mother, fixing a toilet at 3am, and the perils of flexible work
I think I'm turning into my mother.
Now, I should clarify I like my mother. A lot. There are great many characteristics of hers that I should like to emulate. Her sleeping habits are not one of them.
When I was a teenager my mum could never seem to sleep an entire night. She would wake anywhere between 2am and 4am and look at the ceiling for hours. I couldn't understand it. She was tired... nay, she was exhausted. She worked for both love, caring for 4 children, and money, in a job she enjoyed. I considered her sleeping issues ridiculous. And perhaps evidence of a character flaw.
I've changed my mind.
Sore boobs, the smell of wet sheep and a Happy New Year!
It's 2019. Already. We're so excited to be back in the kitchen for 2019, cooking for you. I love the Christmas and New Year period. But on reflection through January, I do feel that there are some things I will do differently this year... Seems every year, on Christmas EveThat all good sense just ups and leavesAlthough I swore we never wouldWe joined that martyred parent-hood Of those who stay up far too lateConstructing toys with long debateWhy do we always feel the squeezeTo get things done by Christmas Eve?I meant to get the carpets cleanDuring the year, but time was leanOn eve of Christmas. Hip hooray!"Last chance," I thought, "Today's the day!" A man arrived, a friendly chapTook out his hose, hooked up the tapAnd in a jiffy he...
Trying to help
I feel certain that the dog would not have bitten the senior recipe tester. That is, if the dog had not thought the senior had pushed it down the stairs.
The senior, it should be said, is not prone to violent acts, towards cute furry animals nor anyone else for that matter. Yet this poor creature saw need to attack the senior's ankle in rather a vicious, blood-drawing fashion.
Shortly after it fell down its own front stairs.
Surely, if it had not fallen down the stairs it wouldn't have even considered that the senior recipe tester had pushed it...
The maintenance of general personal hygiene
I know I don't have it as tough as my grandmother, or her grandmother. Most certainly not as difficult as her grandmother. Modern appliances make the washing of clothes, and therefore the maintenance of general personal hygiene, much simpler than in years gone by.
Until said appliances decide they cannot possibly go on...