Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Does solar save you money?

    I’m asking here. We got solar just before summer and so far, while it’s made a bit of a difference, it’s not a huge difference.

    Firstly, we bought our solar panels on a payment plan. This was probably our first big mistake, but not having a large sum of money tucked away, it was our only option. With the maths we were provided, it all looked amazing on paper. (It always does, right?) What we were repaying each fortnight was equal to what we’d been spending on Pay As You Go power, so we weren’t going to be any worse off.

    Our first power bill after having the panels installed therefore, was a bit of a shock. We’d expected a small bill, but $300 for 50 days?

    I think my jaw fell open and stayed there for days.

    We enquired some more. Why weren’t we covering as much power as we thought we would? What was going on?

    Had we made a giant mistake?

    Read the rest at Money Circle.

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  • This baby ate strawberries. You’ll never believe what happened next.

    YOU GUYS. The upworthy headlines drive me crazy. So crazy of course I had to use one, because IRONY. Or something.

    (This isn’t ironic, it’s just annoying.)

    Yesterday was supermarket day and Coles had strawberries on special. When we got home, I shared the strawberries with Evelyn and YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

    Oh wait, yes you will. Because of course she’s allergic to strawberries suddenly.

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    I put her to bed shortly after these photos. 45 minutes later she was awake, screaming, with a sore tummy and a even splotchier face. No breathing problems or swelling though, so thank god for small mercies.

    After panadol, cuddles and lots of love, she let me put some soothing cream on the angriest of the red bits.

    Strawberry allergy. Grumble grumble grumble.

    She had a bad night and today seems like her tummy is still causing a bit of pain, but the redness has eased, leaving behind a big eczema flare up.

    On the upside, strawberries are much easier to avoid than peanuts or eggs.

    And she’ll probably grow out of it.

    And it’s not that big a deal in the scheme of things.

  • On not paying writers (again)

    Around the time Evelyn was born, I began turning down PR requests left right and centre. I’m sure I burned a lot of bridges, and all I did was politely ask to be paid for my time.

    Amazing how the PR requests dropped off after that.

    But they didn’t stop entirely, and each time I politely ask to be paid, I am politely told in return “We don’t have a budget” or “We don’t pay for comment.”

    People, you’re paying me for my time. For the time I take out of my life to write about your product. For the time I spend ignoring other things in order to focus on YOU and your product.

    Now, let’s be clear – I’m not talking about the work I did for The Shake, which was unpaid, and enjoyable. This is because I KNOW The Shake didn’t have a budget to pay me. There was no one person sitting at the top of the pile making money from our work and refusing to pay.

    But other publications, other companies, they’re different.

    When a large multi-national company tries to tell you they don’t have a budget to pay you, you’re left laughing maniacally in the corner. Because REALLY? REALLY?

    Bullshit.

    There’s money somewhere, but it sure as hell isn’t being spent on the bloggers doing actual work for you. Which is crap, frankly.

    In any case, I wrote about this for Money Circle this week, and it is something which makes me a bit ranty. You wouldn’t refuse to pay your plumber, or your electrician, so why refuse to pay your writers?

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  • Get off my bloody lawn. (Still alive)

    I don’t even know what I’m doing lately. Not on the Internet in any case. I read through the latest dramas, the fitspirations, the omgamazeballs sponsored crap and you know what? I’m just bored. It’s all the same. It’s all been done before and my eyes are jaded.

    I’m tired, you guys. The Internet was my happy place for so long and now I feel like I’m too busy to sink in deep and let it envelope me properly. I dart between soap making forums, facebook, twitter, the blog and click away, run away.

    Eve clings to my legs and I can’t type when she’s awake and I’m too busy when she’s asleep. I want to tell stories, but taking the children out of the blog – they’re getting too old, the bigger two at least – means I’m left only telling my stories and I feel like I’ve said everything in triplicate already.

    Jaded. Tired. Mostly annoyed at the shiny new things playing on my goddamned Internet lawn.

    (It’s all been done before)

    (Even this)

    I’m not leaving, no. Maybe changing direction. Working out where I want to go with this space.

    I’m really enjoying the making things from scratch, but oh, it’s so much more work than pre-packaged things. I feel like I spend all day washing dishes, preparing food, washing dishes, making soap, washing dishes, feeding children, washing dishes. It’s perpetual chaos and don’t get me wrong, it’s the very best kind, but my spoons are limited and sometimes you can’t have them.

    This isn’t much more than a whinge, a whine, a giant complain out into the ether.

    But it’s also a heads up, that this space is metamorphosing (again), into something new.

    I need to get my head back together, write more, play more, experiment more.

    And maybe this means I’ll write about making soap from a newbie’s perspective for a bit.

    I definitely want to do a year of making things from scratch, but I need to plot and plan this out. I also need to juggle the time I spend here, with time I could be spending writing articles to pitch elsewhere (Hey, did I tell you: Essential Kids published an article of mine?) which will actually pay my bills.

    In summary, I’m tired, and this space is changing.

    But tis all good.

     

  • The year of making things from scratch

    I’ve declared this year to be the year of making as many things as possible from scratch.

    From soap, to bacon, to yogurt, and hopefully during winter – cheese. Every fortnight we spend a lot of money on things I could otherwise make cheaply and I’m left wondering why. Why do I do this to myself?

    Of course, there are a myriad of reasons. I’m time poor. It’s easy. Making things is hard when your children are small. I’m busy. Etc etc. But really, they’re all excuses.

    Since Beth mentioned home made yogurt, I’ve made yogurt, three times. The first time curdled terribly, until I did some troubleshooting and worked out my thermos temps need to be lower – around 65C works best.

    Soap is rapidly filling up all my shelves (yay, soap!) and down the track I’d eventually like to try selling some.

    Cheese is a no-brainer, really. Cheese: need I say more?

    So this is my new thing. I’ll be aiming to write about something new every week, talking about what worked for me and what didn’t.

    If you want to read more about my reasoning, there’s an article up at Money Circle about it.

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