Mondayitis hits with a vengeance

Even though it's Tuesday. I want to crawl under a rock and not come out. I miss my friends and am inexplicably hurt that they are feeling the same way as me and don't want to catch up even though they're on holidays. Whinge whinge whinge - Winter can bite my fat hairy legs.

You want to know the definition of torture? That'd be me offering to redo the books that contain some of the products at The House of Bun that don't have a barcode. There's a couple of thousand of them, and we have a folder of them at each register. The ones we have are very out of date and are falling to pieces. So I am checking them. Line by line. And making sure we still carry them. And that the codes are still relevant (ie is it barcoded now? Take it out). And retyping most of them into one document.

Because the previous documents are badly formatted.

In Comic Sans.

Which I can't abide.

Now I'm off to choir rehearsal. I sing in a choir that surely takes an award for being the most confusing and convoluted and intricate evah. It's exhausting but it's either that or I'm going to sit at home alone in my big empty cold house, and be miserable.

Friday fill in #1

Oh look another bandwagon for me to jump on.

1. All children alarm their parents, if only because you are forever expecting .

2. Show me a good loser and I will show you a simple mind.

3. Torture is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs at one time. Only I dislike chocolate, so I'm happy to share with you if you'd like them.

4. Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy knitting and blogging.

5. I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine stripes and spots.

6. It is impossible to think of any good meal, no matter how plain or elegant, without onion or garlic in it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to having Sunday off and having a houseguest for 3 weeks, tomorrow my plans include work and Sunday, I want to knit!

A petition

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed "Save Private Midwifery and homebirth choices".

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.

Thanks!

------------------------------

Why is this so important? I can hear you thinking that

• you've had your babies so this doesn't affect you
  
• or alternately, babies aren't for you
  
• people who birth out of hospitals are nuts
• midwives who work in the community are hippies
• why on earth would you not want to birth in a hospital?
• obstetricians are the best
• there are perfectly free options available
• why would you want to pay $3k+ for something that you can get through private health insurance?
• why would you want pain during birth when you can go to hospital and have it "painfree"
• who cares about women's choices when my sister/next door neighbour/best friend would have died if she'd birthed at home?
  

I'm not here to debate this with you, except to say that I have different views on all of these things from the mainstream and so do other women, and just as you don't have to agree with abortion, or homosexuality, or voting Liberal, or putting sugar in your coffee, or driving to work rather than catching a bus - you would probably fight tooth and nail for the RIGHT of other people to do these things.

What I am here to say is that women have the right to a birth with an educated attendant. The recent proposed changes to the legislation regarding midwives goes like this:

• there will be a register of midwives (which is actually a HUGE deal as it is the FIRST TIME EVAH that midwives will NOT be classed as nurses!!! Yay!!! Now take another 20 years to get over people assuming that I'm a nurse)
• it will be a national register, rather than a state-based one
• to be on the register, I will need to show that I have insurance that indemnifies my practice

Why is this insane?

1. How do you propose that I register when I finish my degree? If by registering I am saying that I have insurance, then how do I get a job that requires me to be registered or be eligible to be registered in order to apply? It's a chicken-and-egg problem - I need a job to show that I have insurance, but I'd need the job and insurance to get registered. This is not the situation at the moment. And makes it insane if I chose to do something like an Honours year, or take a year off.
   
2. How do you propose that I register if *gasp* I don't WORK as a midwife, for an employer? What if I'm also a nurse and I'm working in sexual health or an abortion clinic, as a NURSE, and there is no way in hell my employer indemnifies me to practice as a midwife? Even though I am staying in touch with my midwifery skills through my job (there is a gap between the absolute letter of a position's description and the reality), I am not able to register as a midwife.
   
3. Alternately - what if I don't work for an employer? What if I am an independent practitioner? I am unable to get insurance, through no fault of my own, as there is no insurance option available. Ergo I won't be able to register, or work as a midwife as it's a controlled term and without registration I can't call myself a Midwife.
4. The insurance will not cover out of hospital services.
   

What does this mean?

• That I am wasting my time studying for a degree that I won't be able to use because I do not want to get a job just to register. I will get a job in a hospital to pay the bills, and I am realistic about the speed at which I'll be able to build a practice, but I don't want to have to get a job just to register to practice.
  
• It, if possible, get worse. Let's say we were trying to make OS#1 (offspring #1) right now. That'd be a due date of March 2010. If it's next month (July) that'd be April 2010, August (May 2010) and September (June 2010). No problems. Lots of registered midwives for me to choose from. If we waited until October 2009 though - bam July 2010. I am left with the option of choosing a hospital birth, or going it alone at home. Yes - going it alone. Because I won't be able to employ a midwife to do that. That would risk a $30,000 fine for me, and one for her for good measure. I kid you not - it would be enticing a professional to work outside the scope of her practice. Which also means that I will not be able to practice in a homebirth setting. It will essentially be ILLEGAL for me to do so. And for you or I, or your sister, housemate, best friend, daughter etc to do so.

I can think of no other situation where something that has been shown to be as safe, or safer, than the mainstream option, is going to be illegal in a sneaky way. Or alternately where the way I choose to practice will be restricted.

I understand that many obstetricians and doctors would love nothing better than to have midwives return to being glorified obstetric nurses and not jump or squeak without their permission. I get that homebirth scares the crap out of women who are told that birthing in hospital is safe, easy and guaranteed not to leave you with a dead baby or lifelong issues (bwahahahahahaha - excuse my while I laugh at the ridiculousness of that idea). I appreciate that birth is scary and unknown and complicated sometimes but for the most part, it is a normal life process and the experts in this process are the midwives.

What made me so upset last night that I swore at the acting president of our national body, and cried in a meeting, is that the people in charge just. don't. GET. it. My future dreams are being offered up as the sacrificial temple virgin so that the other great things can go through. Because it affects so few women (and the VAST majority of midwives are women, though not 100% of them) then it is seen to be OK to give something up in the negotiations that are happening. To be told that something has to give, and in this case it is homebirth, and that I should consider the glass half full rather than half empty, makes me despair at the future I face. The people who are "negotiating" this are at the end of their careers and are doing work in the political upper eschelons because they are experienced and amazing - but they also need a smack up the side of the head for even being party to this process.

Where are the industry-wide protests? Where are the rolling strikes? Where are the midwives demanding freedom to practice, regardless of whether they agree with the practice or not? I'll tell you where they are - they are secretly glad that something like this will stop the "craziness" that they consider happens when a midwife walks with a woman who doesn't fit a low risk model of care - someone with twins, or a breech baby, or a medical condition, or obstetric history, or something other than being 22 years old, in perfect health and with a pelvis like a bucket.

My options are now looking like being to go overseas to practice how I want to. I've had one offer from Washington, and one from Waikato - any further?

Today Nicola Roxon introduced two Bills to Parliament.

1) Health legislation amendment (midwife and nurse practitioner) Bill 2009
This Bill is about accessing Medicare and PBS, there is nothing currently written in this Bill that discuses eligibility - there is no comment within it at present that states anything about homebirth. However, in her speech today she openly stated that there will be no MBS for Homebirth.

2) (and this is the clincher) Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth contribution scheme) Bill 2009
This Bill excludes midwives from providing intrapartum homebirth care.

THIS IS A SAD SAD DAY FOR THE WOMEN OF AUSTRALIA!

C.F. the Homebirth Australia’s media release and a poster for the Sept 7th rally in Canberra– we know of 100s of women who will be attending from all over the country – we need 1000s so print it out, pass it on and email it around! You can register your attendance on our facebook page

Australia is going to be the laughing stock of the Western world – what a tragedy! Our new website will be going live by tomorrow morning (I hope) – for regular updates go to www.homebirthaustralia.org

Cheers

Jo Hunter
National Convenor
Homebirth Australia

On blankets and crocheting

When I was little, my maternal grandmother (I think) crocheted me a blanket. From memory, it was purple and dark blue and pale pink and cream, in hexagons. It was probably a single bed blanket but when I was an early teenager, it came apart and was never fixed. Which is odd, as my mother is a consumate seamstress and could probably have managed to fix it.

Oh wait - there's a link there perhaps? Oh that's just great. I go and blog about something innocent like a blanket and instead I end up dwelling on a freaking blanket and the nonrelationship I have with my mother. Yay.

ANYWAYS, the blanket has been on my mind recently. I want it as I remember it from my childhood. I want to look at how it's made and crochet some more. Well, any. I can crochet a chain (badly) and have only just bought a crochet hook. I can't read a pattern yet. So I'd like to. Do more crocheting. And get the blanket back. But how to get it back from my mother? My options are to go there myself (not going to happen c.f. snowflakes and hell) or ask her for it. But if I ask her for it, she can put conditions on giving it to me, or not give it to me and leave me in the same position but also grieving all over again for our relationship, *as* well as the loss of a blanket. Which in my mind is gorgeous and cuddly and wool and pretty and I'm hoping that it is something even half as nice.

So I sent her a relatively easy message via Bookface / Stalkbook and asked her for it to be posted. She sent me back a pointless message saying way more than she needed to, all about her of course, with essentially a "yes" response. When it turns up, I'll post pics and explain how I fix it.

The garden that I built

Isn't it pretty? A few weeks ago I went along to a local childcare cente and built some garden beds. These are two sleepers high and I had SO much fun setting them up, screwing them together (I got to use POWERTOOLS people!) and then banging nail plates on, filling with soil and cow poo, installing irrigition and planting with small children. It was surprisingly easy to build but it took all day to sort out the rest of the renovation and build two of these... So if you have some space go to your local Bunnings store and get them to cut some sleepers for you, then get some help with picking some 90degree angles and various bits and pieces and build! Plant! Grow! Eat. Have a look at more photos here as well.

It did get me thinking though - that I am comfortable with powertools and getting grotty and building things. I love it. I have fond memories of childhood painting days with my dad Ray and building things with him, and I am the proud owner of a power drill, hot glue gun and staple gun and I'm not afraid to use them.

Yay for parties!

Last night was our housewarming and it was fun. It started at 8pm and as you can see from the last photo here, it was a late night. I went to bed on the way to 3am to be honest and I was FREEZING and needed a LOT of time to warm up.

One thing I did do (while drunk none the less) was to cut Sarah's hair. You can get an idea of the before and after lengths of the hair - in the end it looked a lot like Lucy out of the recent Narnia movies. Apparently, anyway, as I piked shortly after doing the first cut bec



The back of my hair is great and I did that myself. I bought scissors recently and had a ball with them. I like my hair red too.

Oh thankyou!!

After 9 and a half weeks without reliant internets, we FINALLY go connected today. I was sitting on the couch eating lunch with MidwifeA and my laptop, which was open beside me but not connected to the internet via the expensive wireless interwebs we've had to eke a living on for the past manydays. And suddenly I heard the familiar "do doop" that gmail uses to tell you that you have mail - but as it was not connected to the internets wirelessless, that could only mean one thing! We have FINALLY gotten back into the interwebs.

Just in time as well as I finished Rogue last night. Will photograph it shortly and post as well.

Families (not an "ugh" post either)

Families are confusing things. What defines a family? Google tells me lots of things but the first I like the most - "a social unit living together". So that makes my family ManFriend and Zaria the Super Kitty and MidwifeA.

Other people's families:
- two parents, two kids, 2 cats, 4 cars, one caravan
- two women, two children, one from each woman and about to be adopted to complete the family
- three women, one guy, no sex going on in the house as they all have partners outside of their house
- one guy
- two sisters
- married couple plus 4 cats
- cohabitating couple plue 2 birds and a lot of yarn

and so on. No "man woman 2.3 kids" on that list. What is the current standard" family though? Is it still that? Or is it something else? Is it a generational thing? Does a house make a home? Does having a family make a house a home? In my case, yes, it does. I live with TheHusband and one of my closest friends. When we procreate we'll still stay in this arrangement I think. Well that's the aim anyway. Then it'll be Offspring#1 and the rest of us, and maybe by that stage MidwifeA will have a MrMidwife and then there'll be 5 (6!? Zaria counts right?) of us. In a huge 3BR house that is probably 4 times the size of our previous house.

This ramble is brought to you by 2 cups of coffee, an assignment due tonight, and our first party at Casa del ArcherMorgan and our housewarming on 20/06/09.

How to save money

There was an amazingly dumb article in Sunday's paper a few weekends ago that put forward really stupid ideas about how to save money. Gah!

For example: Buy a dress and wear it more than once. What an idea! The novelty of wearing something twice! ZOMG that makes me want to smack someone up the side of the head.

There were a few good ones but mostly dumb so here are 20 ideas I have for saving money (I can come up with 20 just right now, so it can't be that hard!):

1. Get organised in your house/home. A lot of spending extra money comes either because you can't find things and go and buy another one, or you don't know that you have something so you don't know you can / have to use it. So go to Ikea or Tupperware or Bunnings or Target or whereever you want to get things to pack your stuff away and label it and use it. You'd probably be horrified at just how many pens you own, for eg, if you got them in one place. It also means that you can find something when you need it!
   
2. Get organised in your day. If you're going out, take water and an apple and some nuts and dried fruit and save on a snack, and a drink. Plan your day so you're home for lunch or dinner or a main meal. Eat a decent breakfast before you go and eat something as you travel as well if it's a little later.
   
3. Freeze things as you go. Meat in bulk. Vegetables. Fruit. Icecubes. Celery. Cheese. Butter. Bread. That kind of thing. It saves time, trips to the supermarket and eating out because you have things on hand to make food with.
   
4. Be willing to earn money. Don't decline any offer of financial return for your skills, time, attendance, help or effort.
   
5. Know that saving money is not about not spending money. You will have to spend money, but spend it judiciously. Go to the dentist, but skip the teeth whitening. Find a great hairdresser who DOESN'T cost the earth and wait 8 weeks between cuts or longer if you want. Buy storage items and be neat. Maintain a sewing machine and learn to sew, mend and make.
   
6. Get a notebook for the car and write a note of the kms on the odometer when you fill up. Do it each time you fill up. Keep an eye on the odometer and see if it influences how much you drive. Also have an eye on how often you're filling up.
   
7. Repair things around the house - I have a glass vase that had separated front from back, and for a few $$ I bought some silicone and fixed it. Easy! New vase! Totally worth it when the roses are so gorgeous at the moment.
   
8. Reuse: wrapping paper, tissue paper, newspaper, plastic wrap etc etc - our mothers did it and we can too.
   
9. Recycle: I had a table that we didn't use as it was ugleh and I bought some laminate paint ($42) and received a sample of Pentrol and voila! new table! And it is SOSEXY bright purple and it is unique and recycled.
   
10. Realistic: are you drinking champagne on a beer budget? Are you realistic in what you earn and what you need and therefore what you should put your money to?
    
11. Reduce: how many times have you ordered a sandwich and added extras to it that you barely think about while eating (avocado I'm looking at you)? Consider making a small reduction each time you eat in particular - a small coffee not a medium one, two fewer fillings on a sandwich, less sauce on your pasta, that kind of thing.
    
12. Reskill: if you learnt something as a kid, update that skill (sailing, knot tying, crochet, camping) and apply it in a new way. Or look at your local hardware store, adult college, library etc and see what they have to offer!
    
13. Garden in some form or another for psychological
    
14. Declutter so that you have what you use and use what you have. It will keep you interested and busy and happy.
    
15. Cook and eat at home. It saves money. Have a stocked pantry so you can at least whip up pasta and a tin of flavoured tuna. I'm not saying don't use any convenience foods but really, it takes 15 minutes to make a pasta that is healthy if you have a few items in your pantry.
    
16. Pursue a dream - get off the rat race merry-go-round and do something you Want To. In my world of perfect children, great thighs and wearable bathers (also known as la la land) if you do something you hate doing, 5/7 days a week, you are going to be miserable and unfulfilled. This meants that you will fill that emptiness with Stuff. And Things. To fill the void that is there because you are doing something you hate or at least dislike more than the benefits are worth. And possibly justify it by saying that you earn a lot of $$, or you will earn in the future. I'm not saying that you have an entitlement to love every minute of your job and yes, you do need a job to get by. But if you're only working in a job you hate so that you have the money to salve your soul because you work in a job you hate, you're doing it wrong.
    
17. Cut back and still enjoy. Use less shampoo or go 'poo less. Phase out sugar in your coffee, or coffee in your day. Walk instead of driving, catch the bus, borrow books etc etc.
    
18. Borrow, lend, barter and trade with friends and family: need a drill? hot glue gun? sewing machine? cookbook? blue coat? cocktail dress? Ask around! If you're needing it for a special occasion then don't bother buying it, but borrow it instead.
    
19. Skip the clothes shopping and buy a sparkly headband, coloured and/or patterned tights, great cheap shoes, and op-shop bargains when you actually need something! I've not "shopped" for a year and going strong on it - I shop from my cupboards and am surprised with what I find. I also have a "1 in, 1 out" rule so I have to get rid of something before I buy something new. Keeps me from needlessly throwing out things I still love. I also keep a list of things that I need, and I check with it whenever I say "yeesh I need a new thingamajig" and if it's on there, then I may actually need it, and not want it. For eg, I need long sleeved winter tops as I live in them over winter (with a tshirt over them at the moment, and later with a sweater over it) but own 1 at the moment.
    
20. Learn how to care for yourself and your family: Colour your own hair or get someone else to do it (or cut it if you're brave, skilled, or not attached to it), learn how to paint your toes, wax your legs, do your eyebrows or whatever else you need to. Do a first aid course, learn to use power tools and gardening tools, and take care of more things yourself. It may cost a little money to gain the skills you need but the investment is worth it.
    

Why we eloped

I am writing some of our thoughts about marriage and weddings and how we go to here out while it's still fresh in my mind. Just two months ago, I chose to become Mrs ManFriend and I'm lots of things about it still and at the moment. Excited, sure, but also trepidatious. I am the child of parents who divorced after a tumultuous married life. They divorced when I was 11, which is a LONG time ago now really.

My younger siblings don't remember my parents being married, which to me is weird. I don't remember them being happy, or being "together" as such, except for a few times when they went out to dinner. I can remember my dad putting on a dash of Old Spice aftershave and putting on his amazing dress uniform and going to work dinners, but that's about it. I remember going camping when I was fairly young (8 maybe?) and walking a lot with my dad, and of painting his trailer cage when I was maybe 9 or 10, and fishing with my grandparents, but I don't remember doing anything with my mother. I must have, at some stage, as I am a great cook now and can sew somewhat and can knit up a storm (all things I learnt from her) but I don't remember spending time with her when I was young. I remember her having her hair permed and me getting a migraine from it and the kind hairdresser massaging my head to ease the agony. I remember her doing things *for* me but not *with* me, ya know?

Anyways, I now have no relationship with my mother, and that had a big thing to do with us eloping. The discussion went like this:

- let's get married
- shall we have a wedding?
- where (I'm from Sydney and TheMan is Adelaidian)?
- who do we invite?
- do I have to invite my mother?
- how do I not invite her?
- ugh
- glass of wine?
- sure
- what wine do we like?
- marlborough sauvignon blanc
- where's that made?
- let's elope there to get married
- ok

And that's about it. Nothing dramatic - just avoiding having my parents in the same room as each other (something they haven't willingly done in 18 years) and avoiding having to put up with her in my life.

Emma hood and pondering on clutter

Today I knit myself a hood similar to the one that Lyra wears in The Golden Compass. You know the one I mean, if you've seen the (really not comparable to the book!) film.

Emma Hood
Moda Vera Mandorla Printed (55% merino 45% acrylic)
100g ball, ~100m (gauge given as 7-8mm needles = 12st x 12rows)
6.5mm needles (so it's a thicker fabric and slightly stiff)

Cast on 60st using cable caston
Did 7 rows of seed stitch, so finished with WS row
Then stockinette until I nearly ran out of yarn - as I was knitting on a circular needle, I could hang it on the cable and test it on my head as I went.
The cast off I wanted an obvious seam for, so folded the hat in half and the two needles with live stitches next to each other. Using another needle, knit one from the front needle, then one from the back, the pass stitch over, and knit another from the alternating needle and so on. You can cast off however you like, of course, but this gave me the nicest edge.
Twist up some of the left over yarn (I had maybe 1m left over!) to make ties under the chin.

It took me about 3 hours all up to knit and would make a great gift for winter for anyone who "can't wear a hat" because their hair make them look like they are bald with a hat on. I was complaining just last night that my ears were cold and my lace beret just wasn't cutting it in the breezey weather we are having here in Adelaide, so it was nice to make a hat quickly, and use up some of my stash.

I've been thinking a lot about stuff and things recently. I have a lot of stuff as anyone who's helped me to move can attest. But recently we moved house to a lovely big new place and there is ample storage for everything we have and there is no need to keep extra stuff. What I *have* done though is buy some storage furniture - three new bookcases to replace the collection of crap student furniture, and two new cupboards for in the study. The ceilings are high here and it makes sense to use that height rather than just the floor space.

I've also been ruthless in my unpacking. I have things that I've had for 5+ years. For example, I have some handmade paper boxes that had a cut-out lid on them. Useful for soap storage and presentation but utterly devoid of usefulness without me making soap for them (I used to do that - make soap). I've schlepped them from Canberra to Sydney and around Sydney and then down here to Adelaide x4 places and now I've said "no more" and put them in the recycling. I've learnt two lessons now:

1. Just because it's something useful, doesn't mean that I have to keep it. Also

2. If I haven't used it by now, but have kept it for a rainy day, chances are I can do without it.

There are things that I keep longterm. Yarn. Books. Paper and pens. But even there I do pare down what I own when I get the chance to review what is there. The upside of all of this is that there is now a method to my stuff and I can find stuff when I want it. I also will use what I have because I can look at my craft cupboard and see my glue gun, or beads, or photos, and do something with them.

What's on the needles

Yes I appreciate that this blog isn't quite the same without pics and I am working to remedy that. You see, when we moved in here, there was no phoneline connected to the house, as it is a Brand New House. We contacted Telstra to arrange this. Telstra send out a technician to assess whether there was cable from the house to the pole (there was) and whether there was a little box on the side of the house (yes, there was) and whether there was a line from the phone cable down the pole (yep, that too). He said no, there weren't, so sent out a contractor to do the cabling. Contractor came out and said yep, the cabling isn't done but I can't do it so sent out a subcontractor to install the box on the pole that wasn't there. Subcontractor came out and signed off on it being installed and therefore Telstra had to come back and do something. Each of these steps took 2 weeks and us waiting around a lot.

Telstra then said they'd send someone out. And then didn't. And then said that the contractor and subcontractor still had work to do before they could do what they had to do. Which wasn't the case. We got jack of this and filed a complaint with the TIO and got nasty with Telstra. EVENTUALLY we have had a phoneline installed and are FINALLY able to make phonecalls.

Now we're dealing with another company to try to get nakedDSL and it is turning into one of those things, again, because we don't know what's going on.

ANYWAY - the moral of the story is that we are not able to use the internet much and only 1 at a time and not able to upload big things, like pictures. Hence the picture-free blog atm.

I have photos to share! Cool ones of a wedding I went to recently, and things I'm knitting and have knit, and house-y type stuff and so on. I've been to a midwife retreat, a camp, Sydney, a volunteering day at a local childcare centre, and there are lots of photos to share.

Right now I'm knitting Rogue and have updates for this. Because of my finger it's having a break atm but I'm up to the hood and am halfway through it. I've used 2 skeins of Bendigo wool so far and it's interesting to see the changes in tension that my shoulder going from mediocre to bad to worse has caused. Because of this, the body is going to be VERY long and warm. The hood is also going to be HUGE. I am knitting it as fast as I can, and have a 2 year headstart on it over Kate but she is up to the same spot as me! Damn her and her fast mad knitting skills.

I also have a scarf on the needles, and another shawl. Photos, I promise, will come soon.

Oops I meant to say yesterday...

Happy 2 months to TheMan / TheHusband! We are actually coming up to 4 years together (23/07) so it's hardly something to take note of except that to me it is.

For our first anniversary I want to get our wedding vows put on paper somewhere in the house. Remind me of that next year, yes?

I've been gardening and nesting a lot here in Adelaide, with the cold and wet (! yes, we've had rain!) weather doing my head in a little. The other day I bought fabric from Ikea, and made curtains. At the same time I also made stock from scratch (from the chicken I'd roasted a few days earlier) and then made risotto with it, and lemon delicious for later. It was so yummy and perfect and an amusement for me seeing as (a) I'd never eaten it before and had no idea what I was making and (b) I had never made it before.

Apart from slicing my finger so badly I probably needed a stitch (but instead it is bound up for a week) the whole thing was a hit. The dessert was soyummy! Thankyou Woman's Day "Cook".

A blog a day keeps the boredom away, right?

I'm going to blog every day for June I think. July is heinously busy, with a trip to Hobart and then to Melbourne and Bendigo for the Sheep and Wool festival keeping me away for 2 weeks out of the 5 and then back to uni.

I have a few things to say I guess but mostly I want to get back in the habit of blogging... because without the internet at home it's a HARD thing to keep going with. But I will perservere!