Sleepless Nights

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  • Bakers Delight and the BCNA – Pink Buns

    Subtitled: I took my daughter into a commercial food preparation area and no one cried.

    In aid of the Breast Cancer Network Australia, Bakers Delight is icing finger buns with pink icing, selling them and donating the proceeds to the BNCA.

    It’s a pretty cool idea and something I was happy to support, especially as cancer has been a bit of a theme in our family. My great grandmother beat breast cancer years ago, but sadly lost her sister to the disease. Her sister’s ring will be my wedding ring in a few months and while I never met her, I like the family connection through my Nan.

    Because the BCNA was asking bloggers to raise awareness, somehow I managed to get myself an invite to the closest Bakers Delight store, to see what they’re doing first hand and ice some buns myself.

    Of course, being a “mummyblogger” I took Amy with me. What better way to ice finger buns, than to take a 4yo into a bakery?

    We had fun, icing buns and chatting to the staff. Amy loved it and was so well behaved. I couldn’t be more proud of her behaviour.

    Bakers Delight is aiming to raise $1m to give to the BCNA, which helps support women with breast cancer.

    And, if you live in the area, I can highly recommend Tim and his team at Bakers Delight in Claremont Village. Their finger buns are delicious.

    ***

    Disclosure: I was not paid for this post and I didn’t request to be. Amy and I did get to bring home the finger buns that we iced, plus a loaf of bread and some rolls – but that was because the owner/baker Tim was generous, not because he had to.

    Supporting people through cancer is something I feel strongly about and therefore, so is this cause. If you can buy a bun in the next week and photograph yourself (or your child) with it, then send it to me, I’ll add your photo and blog link here.

  • Decompressing, whinging, sad and stuff. My brain hurts.

    Sometimes, I write things here and it all goes along swimmingly. Sure, you don’t get the whole story of the ups and downs, but that’s because no one wants to read 3000 words on how my feelings are feeling and how my kids are acting up. Not to mention I don’t want to write 3000 words about my feelings.

    Other times, I go to sit down and write and come up blank and I end up walking away from the computer, rather than writing things out. When I’m feeling like my blog isn’t my safe place anymore, there is usually someone tromping all over it with their muddy boots, making smart arse comments designed to make me feel bad.

    And let me be clear, I’m not anonymous in this space. I’ve never been anonymous. People find me here and then meet me IRL, or the opposite happens and I have no issue with this. In fact, if you know me IRL and you’re reading here and I don’t know you are, I’d love to hear from you. Even if you’re my next door neighbour, or one of the school mums.

    This space stops being a place to talk, when I’m seeing snarky comments written about me. When there are judgements being passed, when they have no idea. When people don’t believe that what I’m doing is beneficial for anyone and so they set out to make me feel bad, by snarky, passive aggressive shit posted online.

    That is when I retreat.

    I’m not sure if I stop writing to save my own sanity, or because I get angry enough that I want to throw rocks at people, but either way, I sit on my emotions and stew and nothing gets written.

    Then I get PMS and I cry on the phone to my mother because it’s a week til payday and I’ve run out of bread and milk and while there is enough money to buy more bread and milk and not have a cent left, this shit sucks.

    When it’s not about the money really. It’s about feeling powerless, and angry. About being bitter and not having anywhere to talk about it. About being hurt and upset, because seriously, what adult goes out of their way to make someone else feel bad? Are you five?

    My last major retreat from being able to blog was shortly after my grandmother died, when shit happened and I was so broken emotionally that I couldn’t connect enough to write what I was really feeling. Sure, I wrote surface stuff, but writing about how breathing hurt, or how I just wanted to sit in the sunshine and cry, that wasn’t happening.

    I still miss my grandmother and the emotional shell I drew around myself 2 years ago has shattered and I’m feeling things, crying and being miserable. Grief is a process and you don’t always move forwards.

    Amy’s Kinder Aide was speaking to me yesterday morning about Amy and some issues we’ve had in the classroom regarding friends. She looked at me and said ‘Amy is such a lovely child. I look at her and know her grandmother would have been proud. I think about Lyn a lot, and know she would have been so proud.’

    I had to leave, because I was going to cry.

    It is lovely to know that my grandmother made such an impact on people.

    And then I cry, because lung cancer in a non-smoker is not how life is meant to happen.

    Life has been getting on top of me and that’s okay. It’s okay to be sad and emotional and not want to write about it.

    What isn’t okay is feeling like I can’t write, because of the judgements being made.

    That’s when I get upset.

    This is MY space. Not anyone elses. And if you feel like I’m not contributing to society enough, or that autism isn’t real, or that my joints don’t really dislocate, you can get stuffed.

    And that’s that.

  • How to grow apricot trees from seed

    A while ago, in the middle of our Summer that wasn’t, we ended up with a couple of kilos of apricots in the fridge. Being the frugal person that I am, I wondered if you could grow apriot trees from seed, so I did some googling.

    It turns out, you can grow apricot trees from seed, but there is no guarantee that they will produce fruit.

    I decided to do it as an experiment anyway, because you can never have too many trees, even if they don’t produce fruit.

    First, you have to take your apricot seeds and let them sit somewhere for 3-4 days, until they dry out and you can hear the seed inside rattling. I ended up with about 40 seeds.

    Once they’re dried, use a nutcracker or similar to crack the hard outer shells. Don’t damage the kernel inside.

    I used a hammer to crack ours and ended up with about 25 seeds that were usable.

    Soak the seeds in water for 3 days, changing the water every day.

    NOTE: Apricot seeds are highly poisonous, especially to young children. As few as 6 could land your child in hospital, so please don’t leave them where a small curious child might decide to try them. I popped mine into a Tupperware container and set it aside on a high shelf. For once, we had no dramas.

    Once the seeds have been soaked, wrap them in damp paper towel and close them into a snap lock bag. The put them into the fridge for 5-6 weeks. This is enforcing winter, to help with germination.

    At the end of 6 weeks, they should have sprouted inside the bag. You can now plant them into pots. I used small jiffy pots to begin with, because that’s what I had.

    I had 20 seeds sprouted at this stage, and one day, I had the bright idea of putting them out into the sunshine to help them grow. I had one seed just sprouting leaves and the others were close.

    What I hadn’t thought about was our very naughty puppy. Within 5 minutes, she had jumped onto the table they were sitting on and eaten most of my seeds. I was furious and wished a tummy ache on her, but apparently apricot seeds aren’t terribly poisonous to dogs. I should probably be grateful for that, but I’m having a hard time with it.

    I managed to save a few and with some time and water, they sprouted little trunks and leaves and they were adorable.

    I potted them up into potting mix and they’re living on my bathroom sink for winter.

    Because they already had an enforced winter sitting in the fridge, they won’t be able to be planted out into the garden until the threat of frost has passed. This means that they’ll get about a 15 month growing season this time, before winter starts again next year and they lose their leaves for it. I’ll probably have to repot them again in a few weeks, because they’re growing rather well. The biggest one is probably 25cm tall and gaining a few cm every second day.

    Amy wasn’t all that interested in the growing process, but I can imagine that other children would find it fascinating, even though it’s a bit of a slow process.

    So there’s how to grow apricots from a seed! It wasn’t at all hard, like making bread, the hardest bit was leaving it alone while it did its own thing.

     

  • My views on welfare reforms for teenage mothers

    Teenage mothers are going to be running the gauntlet in trying to keep food on the table, with the government announcing new welfare reforms for young parents. Once their child is 6 months old, they will be expected to attend Centrelink interviews once a week and will be forced into compulsory education or work training after their child turns one.

    “It’s not a question of punishment, it’s a question of providing opportunity.” says Wayne Swan, Treasurer.

    And with that comment, my blood pressure starts to rise and I’m not sure if I should yell about things, or cry at the stupidity.

    I had Amy when I was 17, so I have a vested interest in teenage mothers and the help provided for them. I also know how hard parenting is, regardless of age and I’m not sure a policy that seeks to make life harder for a minority of parents is, in any way, a helpful thing.

    Centrelink interviews are time consuming. You sit in a waiting room for an hour, waiting to be seen by someone who only knows you as a case file number. Add in a 6 month old child, who may or may not be an “easy” baby and a stressed mother, who may or may not have had any sleep and it feels like a recipe for disaster. I couldn’t find the time to shower and eat when Amy was a baby, let alone lug everything into the city and spend half a day waiting to have my name ticked off, so that money would continue to trickle in. And believe me, Centrelink is a trickle, it’s not a flood of cash, or an easy life.

    I’m curious as to why, you can leave school at 16, but now, if you have a baby as a teenager, once your child is one, you will be forced back into schooling, or certificate level training.

    Sure, it all looks great on paper, but who is looking after the toddler while Mummy is forced out of the house?

    I see that 100% of the childcare costs will be covered by the federal government. Do they really feel that is it better to force young mothers to give the care of their child over to “professionals” while they “better themselves”? We’ll leave aside the issues of finding decent childcare to begin with.

    And I’m sorry, but at any age, parenting is IMPORTANT. Kids need parents who are around. Childcare workers, while lovely, are not the same as Mummy and Daddy.

    I know you’re going to argue with me that “These kids having kids, they need help and prospects” and I’ll agree there. They DO need help and they DO need support.

    BUT – this is not the way to do it.

    It feels like punishment for young women daring to fall pregnant.

    You know what we need? Sex education in schools. Free contraception. Discussion and advice.

    We do not need to make mothers feel like second class citizens, no matter their age.

    This is hearkening back to the 70’s, when unwed teenage mothers were put in homes until their baby was born. Then the mother was forced to give her baby up for adoption and life went on as normal for everyone else.

    I am angry, I am so so angry. Beating teenage mothers with a stick is not the answer to the problem.

    Did anyone in the government think to speak to a teenage mother and find out what hardships she is facing and how it could be made easier for her? No?

    How about I put my hand up.

    Dear Labor Government: I would be more than happy to meet with you and discuss the real issues facing teenage mothers, so that you can have an insight into Real Life and not life as it’s written on paper.

    Bedhair

     

  • On not working for peanuts

    I read a post a few months ago about online magazine owners not paying their writers. I was interested, but didn’t think it was an issue for me.

    However, I was pitched this week about joining the writing staff of a soon to launch webzine, with a section for parenting and opinion. Whilst initially interested, I skimmed the email looking for what I would get out of it. Exposure? Payment? I wasn’t sure.

    I had to look a fairly long way into the email and there it was: Payment by ad revenue sharing, with the writer to get 70% of the ad revenue. We’ll ignore the issues I already have with Ad.Sense and look at it objectively.

    I know that sidebar advertising makes very little money for most bloggers and webzines. If you calculate how much 70% revenue from one post is, I’d say we’re looking at miniscule money and I’m sorry, but I don’t work for peanuts.

    Even if the exposure was likely to be huge, I was turned off by the list the length of my arm of what I could and couldn’t do, what they did and didn’t want (no self-deprecating humour? REALLY?) and how many posts I would be required to write every month.

    Okay look, I get strict guidelines for writers. I GET it, that they want their webzine to be exactly what they want and how they want it – that’s their prerogative.

    But seriously, if I’m going to put that much energy into posts, I’m going to do it on my own website, or on something I truly believe in. Not a webzine who form lettered me, asking me to apply.

    BECAUSE YES. Oh wait, what’s that at the end? If I want to write for them, I need to apply first. Even though they approached me.

    It’s a bit crappy.

    Look, if a friend approached me and asked me to write for their website, because they felt that I had something to share, I absolutely would. I’ve contributed to the Mummy Blogger Blog before and I will again, because I believe in it, and what Louisa has done with it.

    You know what would have been more effective? Spending the $50 to advertise on Problogger’s Jobs Board, because that way, you wouldn’t have offended me with the work for peanuts mentality. I would have just ignored the ad as not for me, and moved on.

    I’m not a fan of working my arse off for someone else’s project, unless I adore that person, or think that the benefits for me personally will outweigh the work. I’ve done it a few times now and it hasn’t worked out for me. I’ve had to take a step back and say selfishly – what does this do for me? Do I get any recognition for doing what I’ve done? Am I being paid? Is my own profile being raised? Well then, no thank you, but I don’t want to do this for you anymore.

    So for me, I’m not going there again.

    If you want me to write for your webzine, it has to benefit me personally, in some way. Or, I have to love what you’re doing and want to be part of it.

    Otherwise, thanks, but no thanks.

    This blogger doesn’t write for nothing.

    ***

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