Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Reading, reading more, reading better

    Home by Larissa Behrendt

    I read a lot, eagerly consuming books as fast as I can download them. Anything and everything, I’m not a fussy reader.

    Of course, I have my preferences – I’ll choose Urban Fantasy over a mystery, and a mystery over literary fiction. I love my kindle, I love the Book Depository, I’m never happier when I stumble across a book sale, or second hand books being given away.

    So when Anita Heiss published her Black Book Challenge, I expected to have read at least a few of the books.

    No.

    Not even one, I’m ashamed to say.

    It’s ridiculous, because clicking links and reading synopsis after synopsis, they are amazing books one and all. But because I rely on discount books, word of mouth recommendations and things I find in second hand stores, I’d missed every single book on the list.

    This is my challenge for 2014 – to read at least 20 of the books on the list, possibly more depending on finances. Because they’re not mass market paperback, they’re not cheap, but I’m treating every single book as an investment.

    With information coming out about plans to change the school curriculum, and the way history is taught, I feel it’s important my children have access to stories which tell of what happened when England invaded Australia, and the atrocities which followed over the next two centuries.

    It’s a dark history. Shying away from it, and refusing to teach our children the truth about how our country came to be won’t change what happened. And frankly, history is schools is already woefully inadequate, and Aboriginal history is even worse.

    I’m hoping by the end of the year I will have learned more, found new favourite authors, and gathered together a collection of books I wish to read and read again.

  • Another week people. We have another week of holidays.

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    School returns in just over a week down here in Tasmania. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to it. This year I’ll have two of three children in school and the amount of free time I predict myself having is a little dizzying.

    What isn’t on my “list of things I’m looking forward to” are the costs associated with school. Fees, levies, uniforms, school essentials, lunchboxes, it all begins to add up.

    While most of the costs are a one off thing at the beginning of the year, it doesn’t stop it becoming expensive fast if you’re not careful.

    I’ve already braved the crowds at one disorganised, insanity inducing department store in my search for plain black pants and shoes that don’t pinch.

    Read The Rest at Money Circle.

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  • Magic, fiction and reality

    I read a lot of books, and lately it’s been mostly urban fantasy style stuff. Ilona Andrews. Carrie Vaughn. Patricia Briggs. Kalayna Price. Richard Kadrey. Also Robin Hobb, who isn’t urban fantasy, but she writes the best characters and magic I’ve read.

    I finish these books and I’m left feeling emptier somehow, wishing for magic, for meaning, for something more.

    Em Elizabeth tweeted above about dragons not being real and I sat there, looking at the screen, stunned for a bit. I spend an inordinate amount of time wishing magic were real. Constructing elaborate fantasies inside my head involving the existence of werewolves and fae, debating their existence.

    And it’s strange really. I’m a married mother with three children, and yet, I desperately wish these things were real.

    I’d like to say something beautiful and poignant here about bending reality to my whim, and etc, but really? I just think magic would be really fucking cool.

    This is why I’m a writer. My daydreams get to become reality in some small slice somewhere. I can write rules which have to bearing on my current reality. I can have faeries, and yes, even vampires. Because why not?

    But it does seem disappointing to only have the reality I want exist in my mind, completely oblivious to the world that is.

    You might think me strange and that’s okay, because I am. All writers are a little weird.

    Do you read Urban Fantasy? Who does it best?

     

  • Breasts and bras and weaning

    Last night I woke up at 3am. Evelyn was pressed into my chest, snuggled tight. One cat was asleep in front of my knees, another cat was sprawled out behind my knees. Nathan snored next to us all. Briefly I wondered where the other 50% of the cats were, before deciding not to think about it in case I summoned them accidentally.

    Needless to say, night weaning Evelyn, and keeping her in her cot all night is not going so well.

    In fact, I think I’ve given up. She’s a pretty snuggly sleeping companion.

    I tried, believe me, I tried. But after two hours of screaming (from 1am-3am) she wore me down and I gave in. Really, I am not at my best in the wee hours of the morning, and turns out, Evelyn is as stubborn as I am. She’s just more high pitched about it all.

    School goes back in just under a fortnight, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t counting down the days. Not because my children have been difficult – exactly the opposite if anything. They’ve played together well, hardly fought, and they’re pretty awesome.

    But I have work piling up, lots of it. Things I put on hold for the school holidays are starting to nag at the edges of my attention, and I am desperate for a little bit of alone time without someone needing me immediately and loudly.

    Anyway. Not long now.

    Unrelated: I need a new bra. Bonds very kindly sent me through some bras to trial a few months ago (whoops, hey, sorry Bonds), and I was hoping they would be great for when my milk supply dropped.

    Little did I know my breasts were going to expand in size again, leaving me exploding out the edges of the DD bras they sent. Yeah, it’s not going to work for me, which is a shame.

    I’ve made tentative plans to go and buy a new bra next week, but our car has been at the mechanic now for more days than I care to count and I’m loathe to even think of the bill when it arrives.

    Sadly I think my breast supports may have to wait.

    In the meantime, Eve thinks my non-fitting bras make a great hat.

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  • And then the tins threatened to explode in my face

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    I wandered into the kitchen this morning and found my toddler studiously pulling out all the tinned food in my bottom cupboard. Cans of tomatoes warred with tuna and she was perilously close to breaking open a jar of jam as she happily tapped the lid with a tin of corn.

    I went to put them away, but first I glanced at the best before date on the tin of tomatoes. I knew it had been a while since we’d bought them – they were the cheapest supermarket label, and we hadn’t had to buy that brand for a while.

    I didn’t expect the use by date to be all the way back in March 2011 though.

    Read The Rest at Money Circle.

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