Photo a day for January 2010 - week 1

So I planned on taking 1 photo every day for a year. As you can see from my timeline for January, not a bad start for the year with . Next time I think I'll publish these weekly - a month is a LOT to digest and reflect on.

This picture hangs in our bedroom. It is of a cafe street in Melbourne. The guy paints with a palette knife and trowel and can be found in the Victoria Markets in Melbourne.
TheHusband's crazy hair. This is him at our traditional family friends laksa night, looking a little worse for wear as we were halfway through CRAZYSEASON at work.
This is the pot of joy that greats us at our front door. Pigs face and little houses. Makes me very happy to see!
I try to regularly tip my bag out as it's a huge hobo bag from Etsy that Kate gifted me last year, and things tend to accumulate in it. In this case it wasn't too bad - mobile, keys, wallet, sunglasses, pen, Emergency flower essence, two lipbalms and a lip stain, business cards, some change, a hair clip and my pregnancy details (the orange book). I really want her Scooter Bag as well as the Hobo that I have is actually a little too deep for my arms and will graduate to a baby bag when Puggles arrives.
Jon invited a few of us over for dessert and this was his amazing preparation!

5/7 for the first week. Enjoy.

My house smells like muffins

In my younger days, when the internet was brand new and the world was a less stressed place, there was a thing called IRC and I spent a lot of time on there instead of studying. My nicknames was muffin cause I loved making them. Sweet and savoury - REALLY cheap eats for a student and filling.

I have perfected my recipe for a sweet muffin which is not too sweet, not cakey, and easily adapted to any fruit you've got around. I made some for us today as a breakfast treat because we have a weekend off together for the first time in ages. I thought I'd share my recipe. Please note that this is not a sweet or cakey muffin. They freeze well if wrapped up when still a little warmer than room temperature.

Melted butter for greasing the muffin tins, or a spray on oil, or muffin cases
2t garam masala or cinnamon or all spice
3/4C brown sugar
2C (300g) plain flour
1T baking powder
2 medium apples, cored and chopped (and peeled if you don't like the peel)
3/4C sultanas or nuts or seeds (optional)
125g salted butter, melted in a microwave-safe jug
2 eggs
3/4C milk or half milk half yoghurt or sour cream

Put the brown sugar and spice into a bowl. Sift the plain flour and baking powder together on top. I add a pinch extra to ensure that the muffins aren't too cakey and dense. Use a fork to mix the sugar and flour and spice together. Toss the apple into the flour and mix in well. Once the butter is cooled, add the milk and then the eggs to the same jug - less chance of them cooking that way! Whisk well. Pour into a well in the flour. Using a wooden spoon, mix together imperfectly - make sure you can't see any flour, and can't see any puddles of liquid.

Spoon into a pre-prepared muffin tin. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes. With lots of apple you'll get 16 or so regular-sized muffins. Eat hot or cold, with butter or lemon curd.

Savoury muffins - to make them, the recipe as written is fine as long as you have 1.5C or so of fairly dry filling that is ready to eat and remove the spice obviously. If it's less, or if it's wet, then you need to reduce the milk by a little or bake a little longer. Some filling suggestions:

- any fruit, and appropriate spices
- ham
- feta
- mozzerella
- sundried tomatoes
- salmon and dill
- cooked vegetables

10 think that have amused me, filled me with joy, or cheered me up this week

1. Watching Huey's Cooking Adventures and seeing him cook a casserole and him exclaim continually throughout it, that this was not the way he'd normally make a casserole. But that it worked perfectly. He doesn't make the extra step of going "well maybe the way I do it is complete overkill and a waste of time?
   
2. Seeing TheHusband SO happy with his new jersey for the Tour Downunder stage that he's riding in on Friday.
3. Having a dumpling date with TheHusband last night, and cold dumplings for a snack after rehearsal.
4. SLEEPING so well on our new mattress.
5. Finding a chest freezer that will fit our tiny little gap in the laundry.
6. Taking a whole morning to sort out the mattress and just doing it. Being a grown up about things like that
7. Counting our nappy stash, which is probably too big to warrant mentioning here just yet, but makes me happy to realise that we'll soon have a teeny bottom to put them on.
8. A clear blue sky without 40C+ weather.
9. Solar powered lanterns.
10. Have a dinner roster - makes life SO much easier!
    

Busy bee

I have a new set of cramps, stretch marks, swollen feet/ankles and lack of sleep. And by "cramps" I mean I have to breathe through them and grimace a bit. Mostly from over-working at 32 weeks, and from being on my feet way too much. Only 4 weeks, and 17 shifts to go.

So a day off today saw us clean the house thoroughly and then I made spring rolls, and a banana cake, and a roast chicken, and smashed potatoes, and roast pumpkin. zomg the chicken was perfect, and the Crash Hot Potatoes were very successful.

Is this the nesting phase of pregnancy? I don't know. I do know that I also cleaned the pantry out, and the fridge, and did some crafty, and washed the dishes, and now need a nap.

Planned home and hospital births in South Australia, 1991–2006: differences in outcomes

The Medical Journal of Australia has released a paper and is claiming wildly increased rates of deaths among home births in South Australia. Read the synopsis - complete with 27 times higher! 7 times higher! bad APGARs!! - and then read the study and LOOK at the contradictions. It is appalling that this stuff ever gets published. And what's with the random throwaway inclusion of SIDS in there? I don't even begin to understand that inclusion...

Edited to add: and interviewed for on NewsRadio!!
Mon 10:45 - Babies are seven times more likely to die during a homebirth labour than a hospital labour -- according to a new study ... (audio)
Mon 10:50 - Homebirth advocates have accused the AMA of conducting a scare campaign ... (audio)

So let's take it apart as Joy has done, just for kicks - cause we all know that the "dead baby" card is a winner, regardless of the facts. Lisa has written a great summary of this as well.

• Although presented as research, it is not - it is a report on the statistics that were available. In research terms, this is the lowest of the low and has no control for biases and no statistical power which is interesting as I am (a) hopeless with statistics and (b) unschooled in them. The conclusions drawn are not backed up by solid numbers so are no better than opinion which is interesting because if you listen to the above interview (first one) the guy is not actually saying what is being reported. He clearly says that homebirth is safe.
• The planned homebirths that are reported are confounded three ways - no one can tell whether they were under the care of a registered and experienced midwife, or were unattended births, or under the supervision of a hospital-based program; the "planned homebirth" number is ~1000 and the actual number is ~300 so we're not talking about actual homebirths - just those that at the first antenatal appointment said they'd like one; and lastly - the way statistics are gathered changed during the time period reported.
  
• The title tells us something - it was about planned hospital and planned homebirths, at time of booking. This is a LONG way from the actual outcome, some 8-9 months later and the study author clearly states that they are unable to separate planned homebirths to actual homebirths out. Lots of planned homebirths don't eventuate for lots of reasons, and not all of them have anything to do with the pregnancy or maternal health. Having filled in the form that is being used here, I can tell you - the midwife looks at the Handheld Record and writes something down. No discussion is entered in to about the whys and wherefores of what changed those plans.
  
• There are probably only 2 situations in all those years where someone's baby died and it was at home and they planned to be there. 2. In 16 years. 1 had known high-risk indicators as it was a twin pregnancy. So we're down to 1 surprise death. In 16 years. That's pretty good odds.
  
• There is no way to look at such a rare outcome of intrapartum death with a small sample. Someone else has pointed out that with those odds you'd need 10,000 births at home to demonstrate this. I'm not a statistician so can't comment on those.
• I've listened to an interview with the author and he does say quite clearly that homebirth is a safe option as long as the woman is prepared, is assessed for risks, and is close to a hospital.
• I agree with Hannah Delaney (as Joy quoted her): I find it amazing that in a broken system, with uninsured midwives with no rights in hospitals, the death rate is actually no different.
  
• The intervention rates are STARKLY different - c-section 9.2% in planned homebirth vs 27.1% in hospital births, episiotomy rates of 3.6% in planned homebirth vs 21.7% in planned hospital births (one sixth the rate!!!!! And CLEARLY shown to be a bad idea anyway. 3.6% is also for the "planned homebirth" women, 70% of whom birthed in a hospital so is not "of women who birthed at home" but includes a large number of women who were perhaps treated the same (ie were likely to have a 21.7% chance of an episiotomy anyway) so the actual % would be lower still).
• Lisa's comments about PPHs got me thinking: that the comparison of post-partum haemmorhage is ridiculous enough to call the whole thing in to question. The numbers are similar once the authors took out the know reasons for PPH in hospitals (episiotomies, induction and augmentation, surgery etc) and so the author concludes that oxytocic drugs are used with the same gay abandon at home as they are in hospitals. Um - no. You the author firstly don't ask if drugs are used, so you can't make that conclusion from the stats. And further you clearly have NO idea how homebirth works and that the calm nature of birth, along with skin-to-skin immediately, breastfeeding, bonding, known care provider and so on decreases the risk of PPH. Even something as simple as keeping the room warm is said by people such as Odent to help. And perhaps because you took out all the confounding factors that are iatrogenic to the birth process in hospital, and found the same number, there is always going to be a background level of PPH and that nothing can be done to avoid a small number of them. It comes down then to how they are managed.
  

Women will always choose this and my concern is that this is going to go even more underground than it already is. I've heard women saying now that these changes make them LESS likely to hire a midwife to birth at home. Not less likely to have a homebirth but less likely to be attended by a registered, trained and competent professional. They are saying they are more likely to freebirth or just hire a doula for comfort. This is going to make the outcomes worse, not better, and probably not change the numbers.

The authors state that ‘women's autonomy in choosing reproductive behaviour is a fundamental human right enshrined in Australian law'. It is about autonomy. Others have said "The excess mortality continues to be found in high-risk women and women need to be informed of this risk." but are missing the point - that even when informed of the risk, some women would rather birth at home and not go to a hospital. And there are some practitioners who will take on those at high risk.

This does give me pause for thought about my own practice. What risk appetite do I have? As a beginner practitioner, I am prepared to go with some known knowns - breech, grand multip, reasonable distance from a hospital - but not twins, or pre-term, or probably a few others. The unknown unknowns I am trained to deal with and know that I have a whole heap of midwives at my phone-tips to call and discuss with, and I can't assess those beforehand so just need to keep up my training and skills and calm to deal with them.

Lastly - this is about the babies. Think of the children!! But there is no measure made of the maternal mortality, and only a very crude analysis made of maternal morbiditiy. No measure of maternal satisfaction.

Hoyden About Town said:
"If this study had shown a substantial increase in fetal deaths with home birth, this would still not be a reason to place legal restrictions on reproductive choice. It would not be a reason to imprison women in hospital by State force, and it would not be a reason to stop women from making informed decisions about our own bodies. They are our bodies, and until a fetus is born, we get the final say in what happens to us."

And therein is the crux of this - it is about the women and their bodies. The fetus does NOT exist legally until it takes its first breath. So what we are talking about it restricting the rights of roughly half the population. Sure, they are rights that a lot won't exercise, and choices that many of them will never make but - just like I have the choice to smoke - I have the choice about where I have this baby.

Top 100 recipes

It's that time of the year isn't it - where the top 100s and 50s and 10s come out. RecipeZaar kicked it off with their top 100 recipes of the year.

The top 10:
1) Better Than Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce
2) P. F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps
3) Fannie Farmer's Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese
4) Best Ever Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
5) Bourbon Chicken
6) Cracker Barrel's Hash Browns Casserole - Copycat
7) The Best Chili You Will Ever Taste
8) Oreo Balls
9) Whole Chicken Crock Pot Recipe
10) Soft Snickerdoodle Cookies

From 2008, the top 100 gives us this top 10:
1) Better Than Olive Garden Alfredo Sauce
2) P. F. Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps
3) Bourbon Chicken
4) Puppy Chow or Monkey Munch
5) Best Ever Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
6) To Die for Crock Pot Roast
7) Soft Snickerdoodle Cookies
8) Fannie Farmer's Classic Baked Macaroni and Cheese
9) Jo Mama's World Famous Spaghetti
10) Beer Bread

There are lots of repeats there from 2008 to 2009, reflecting that the "classics" of the new century are not found in well-worn books and handed down recipes. They are the handed around, blogged about, passed on and printed out.

I however am not a fan of American cooking - the flavours are strange, and some of the ingredients are not available here. So I looked at the taste.com.au list. Which was only 50. So I looked at them all and there are lots on here to comment about!

50. Banana bread (Yum. A favourite around here)
49. Bread & butter pudding (Not a favourite of mine. MIL makes it but I can take it or leave it)
48. Tuna mornay pasta bake (Yum. Another favourite)
47. Greek salad (Dislike olives. And without them it's not a Greek salad. So not yum)
46. Vanilla cupcakes (Yum)
45. Lemon slice (Double yum!!)
44. Choc chip banana muffins (Shmeh - take it or leave it. Not a fan of chocolate)
43. Banana cake with cream cheese frosting (Yummo - made my own tonight, for dessert)
42. Beef sausage rolls (Yum)
41. Easy fried rice (Yum)
40. Chocolate mousse in minutes (Good for a dessert - I serve mine in tea cups)
39. Basic roast beef & vegetables (Yum)
38. Thai red curry chicken (Yum)
37. Mediterranean chicken bake (It took me til now to find something I didn't immediately say "Yum. Made it. Been there. Perfected it.")
36. Pumpkin & spinach salad (Yum - two of my favourite vegetables)
35. Classic quiche lorraine (Yum)
34. Hearty beef casserole (Yum)
33. Chicken & sweet corn soup (Yum)
32. Chocolate brownies (Again with the chocolate?!)
31. Easy fried rice (Again?) (But - still yum)
30. Pasta salad (Yum)
29. Mediterranean chicken casserole (Again?)
28. Spaghetti carbonara (Yum)
27. Chicken and cheese pasta bake (Hmmmmmm. It would depend on the chicken. I dislike immensely reheated chicken)
26. Creamy potato bake (Yum)
25. Butter chicken (Yum)
24. Cheesy potato bakes (Yum) (Anything with cheese and potato gets my thumbs up!)
23. Red wine garlic slow cooked lamb shanks (Yum)
22. Chocolate chip cookies (More chocolate)
21. Irish stew (Hmmmmm maybe?)
20. Basic pancakes with lemon & sugar (Yum - a staple around here)
19. Gingerbread men (Yum)
18. Beef stroganoff (Yum)
17. Potato & leek soup (Yum)
16. Rich chocolate cake (*sigh* I wish I liked it)
15. Chocolate caramel slice (Yum - I'll eat the caramel, you have the chocolate)
14. Thai beef salad (Yum)
13. Hearty chicken and vegetable soup (Yum)
12. Sticky date pudding (Yum)
11. Slow cooked lamb shanks (Yum)
10. Pikelets (Yum)
9. Chewy Anzac biscuits (Yum) (This is starting to read like a "here are the 50 dishes that describe Australia's cuisine)
8. Basic scones (Yum)
7. Classic shepherd's pie (Yum)
6. Apple crumble (Yum)
5. Zucchini slice (Yum)
4. Basic scones (Again? Cheats!)
3. Classic cupcakes (Yum)
2. Pumpkin soup (Yum)
1. Banana bread (Yum - again. #1 and #50?)

So really a list of 50 turns into a list of several less. But still a great list!

So - things Emma does not like:
- olives
- corriander
- reheated chicken
- chocolate
- bread and butter pudding

and has very strong Australian roots and flavour references. But with a babe on the way - and the In Laws getting us a chest freezer for a Christmas, birthday, wedding, housewarming gift - I have been thinking lots more about making foods and so have started a calendar with TheHusband so that we know what to make. We are both members of it and I have synched it with me Ipod. The idea was simple enough and not mine to be honest. I created a Google Calendar, and then tried to come up with 35 meal ideas. Ooooooh boy that was hard! Then I set them to repeat over 5 weeks and let them be.

After a week, it is proving a goddess-send. It means I just have to "look" at something rather than try to work out what we are going to eat. It also means that my energy goes into the dish, not into what we're going to eat. And we can use things out of the cupboard and kitchen to substitute and still keep some consistency.

For example - tonight was chicken and apricot or mango. But we don't have any apricots or mango. Nothing tinned or jarred. So it went onto the shopping list so there is stuff in the cupboard for next cycle, and I made a roast chicken instead. So we're not slavishly adhering to the menu plan but it's a plan.

This falls into the "oh dear with have no money and bills to pay and something has to be cut down" category as well. I cleaned out the pantry and there is a LOT of food in there. Not too many repeat packets (though there were 3 containers of brown rice!) and not too many open, and nothing infested thankfully. We could easily live out of the pantry for a month though. And I aim to make things for the freezer as well so we can eat out of that post bub.

Ugh I've waffled enough. I'm going to go and make some hot chocolate and have a small piece of banana nut cake and retire for the evening.

You're so vain / Shame on you

So this is a very long and rambly post. But I'm getting it out there and then I'll move on.

I have occassionally in the past 6 months been really angry at the world, and really nasty at work. I'm intelligent and smart and me being nasty when I work currently in retail is not ok, and it is not very pleasant. I have a super nasty voice in my head and seriously some of the things it comes out with, about people around me, and about beloveds and friends as well as foes, is appalling.

This is aside from the usual voice that I have that laughs at people who come to a DIY store and refuse to do it themself, or people who ask ridiculous questions, or who make me do a refund for $0.12 and wait 10 minutes, holding people up behind them, while I hunt down a code for something that they can't remember where they found it.

And no I don't have voices in my head - just a side track of commentary. Doesn't everyone?

Anyway, this nasty voice is getting old and is horrible. And I've been trying to work out what it's about. And in a throw away comment to Kate the other day kind of summed it up. The voice in my head is Shame. Shame is loud and nasty and let's me feel like I could be superior to whomever I'm thinking ill of. Although - am "I" thinking it consciously? No, I'm not sitting there thinking badly. It's like little emails are delivered and opened without me actually thinking that way.

So - Shame is visiting with me and I don't know why. Shame is nasty and everyone around me seems to have something to be shamed over by me thinking it. Or ashamed about because that's how they Are.

And in that distinction I worked it out. I am feeling shamed about something big and it is popping up in me trying to put everyone else in the same boat as me.

I do the same thing with good things, so this is not surprising. If I'm happy I want everyone to be happy and everyone around me gets the light of my joy shone on them. Same with upset moods - as much as I am sensitive to them (oooooooohh boy am I sensitive to them!) in other people, I project a good one as well.

I've had a lot of time to reflect on this recently and the only thing recently that's changed has been being pregnant. I am thrilled to be pregnant. I love being pregnant. I love my situation and my future and my plans. So I'm not shamed for pregnancy.

What has been adding up is that I am shamed by the weight I've put on. Thanks to my WiiFit I know that I've put on 12kg in 6 months (10-15 is normal and I don't weigh or get weighed by my care provider - I do by my WiiFit though!). On one hand I don't care - I am growing an awesome bump that is just perfect in size and is growing on schedule. But on the other hand, I am clearly troubled by it. I comment regularly to beloveds about other people commenting on my size and shape. In a defensive way. I also get very upset about it, which is hard when I work with a bunch of people who can be very thoughtless or else are nasty. Seriously - when the first comment of my day, even before I start working, is "My god you're ginormous" it really sets the tone for the day. And I work 4-6 days a week. Even if my come back is "I'm happy to lie down and let you measure my bump if it means you'd feel better about my size", it still obviously stings deep on my psyche.

I don't have many body hang ups when I'm in touch with my body, and active. I'm comfortable naked etc etc blah blah blah. I barely even notice the size of other people - I do notice how they carry themselves, what they're wearing, and they're shoes (cause they're really interesting!) but I do try to embrace "healthy at every size" in my thinking as well as my acting. So this is not a "I hate fat people and zomg I'm turning into one so I hate myself" moment. Honestly.

But in the past 2.5 years I've lost a lot of my condition because of a motor vehicle accident and then getting pregnant and suffering heinous morning sickness for more than 3 months. And so I am unhappy with my size because it's not the shape but the way you use it and what people see is Increased Size which is reflective of my Less Using it.

Aaaaannnndddd we're back the full circle. I am feeling judged and measured by people close around me because EVERYONE comments on my size, bump, etc etc (but never my breasts - why is that?). I am also surrounded by complete-stranger type people who I feel measure me and judge me because I work in retail, I'm a woman in a male-dominated industry, and because I'm a woman.

This is about how I feel by the way. And it comes back to something that happened when I was in primary school - maybe year 6? So I was 10 or so. About to reach menarche. Growing breasts and hips and upwards as well. That strange new girl (hey I always was - 9 schools in 11 years of schooling does that to you!). I can remember being pulled out in front of my dance class and totally, utterly and completely humiliated because I was getting fat. I remember it going on for a very long time and it being humiliating and revolting and knowing that I couldn't go to my mother about it, so I suffered being judged and measured and weighed in front of a room full of people for whom I didn't care much. And something snapped in me then. I remember feeling that out of body experience when part of your psyche truly changes. I remember being so embarrassed that a small piece of me died. And it was because of someone else's opinion of my body.

And so - now that I have a body that is changing because of something out of my control, I am that young girl again. I am feeling judged by people around me. People think it's ok to comment on my shape and size and I can't respond. And that small piece I thought had died turns out to have rotted and twisted in the past 20 years and is now named Shame. Shame wants everyone else to be ashamed of their bodies, just like she is.

And of course, in working out all of this, my shoulders are straightened, my body is carried proudly again and Shame starts a journey back to the light that is Acceptance. Is it a long journey or a short one? I don't know. It's a hard journey that could go on a twisted path through eating disorders, exercise obsessions and unhealthy approaches to life. But it is something I have to get through.

Progress from my last post - and more on school this year

My last post said I had 10 things to do. I've done 1, 3, 7 and need to work had to do 4 today and 5 tomorrow. 10 is being done on Sunday.

I had a look at school this year and of course I have workshops 2nd, 9th, 16th and 22nd of March which is around the time of me birthing. I also have a class 26/04, 05/05 and 11/05 as well as placements. *sigh* I don't know how I'm going to manage this with a newborn or even if I should. I'm hoping I can study externally and get enough out of it to make it worthwile and do adequately to move on to my last subject. But just a teeny tiny bit of regret at the less than fabulous timing of all of this creeps in. Why did I choose the path a bit more difficult than waiting until this year to conceive? Well at the time it was the overwhelming NEED to do so and the feeling of not POSSIBLY wanting to wait another year and I acknowledged that and we embraced it. But yeesh - now the idea of juggling this as well as my final year at school? Just a little bit confronting.

10 things to do this week

1. Pay our midwife her fee (this is on my list of things to do because it requires me to go to the bank, which is a drama in itself!
2. Plan a birth (as much as possible)!
3. Interview a woman to be her follow-through student midwife
4. Finish my portfolio for 2009 and
5. hand it in
6. Decorate some of the bedroom
7. Take photos every day - have missed one so far this year but that's ok!
8. Send off my report to the lawyers to move foward in settling claim
9. Get a mattress topper
10. Spend a day with my husband

When I'm not feeling like so much wet tissue, I will get back to writing real posts. I'm sure my lists are fascinating to people .

30 weeks this week. 5 and a bit weeks of work to go. YAY!

Name sweet spot

There is a sweet spot in naming a baby - somewhere between the very common (Emma, Kate, Sarah, Melissa for eg) and the uber uncommon (Deja, Psyche etc). It is freaking hard to find though.

This post was written on 03/03 and is planned for posting in early April. Just so you know. Puggles will actually have a name by now, but this is to document our thoughts.

Teresa Strasser suggests two tests for naming a girl baby - and finding that sweet spot - is to pretend you're being introduced to this baby as a lawyer, and also as a blind date prospect. Kate recommends thinking about standing at the back door calling your child in from play. I'm caught in a place of having a very common name and hating being the 2nd or 3rd Emma in a group of friends or at school.

So our short list at some point has been:

Boys
- Flynn
- Gideon
- Griffin
- Bexley
- Bailey
- Darcy
- Sebastian
- Rowan
- Quinlan
- Jasper

Girls
- Sally
- Ophelia
- Chloe
- Isolde
- Tabitha
- Odette
- Indigo
- Claudia
- Scarlett
- Addison

We also considered Audrey (oh how we've gone back and forth with that one) and Saskia (a little too popular around a group of friends) and Salome (too biblical for me).

EDITED TO ADD: We went with Sally (short for Salome which in the end was because of a U2 song and it took me 4 days to realise that it probably made my mother (devout Baptist insane harpie with whom I have nothing to do) feel faint) and Clio, cause I liked Chloe but it was a little too like clover for me!

Welcome the new year!

Some call it resolutions. I instead am saying "changes".

I have 5 changes I want to make and 2010 is a good time to do it:

- Give birth in my home
- Reach out to people and find some more irl friends
- Put my personal happiness and that of my family, above other things
- Spend less time on the internet
- Take a photo a day

I am doing well with #5 right now. It's been 1 day.

The colour blue

For some reason, I strongly dislike the colour blue. I own a lot of red, orange and yellow and 1 blue shirt. It's a cornflower blue though. I don't like navy, or many other shades of blue. I feel like I disappear in it. Perhaps because I wore it as a school uniform, or because it's how my eyes/brain perceive colour.

Kate has the same thing about orange. I like blue on other people. I have blue eyes and in fact blue really suits me. But I hate wearing it and in particular don't wear light denim.

I am coming around to some blue - I have a maternity dress that is navy bordering on black, so that's as close as it gets at the moment. And I'm wearing more purple which is the other side of blue I guess.

I love blue precious stones - Ceylon sapphires and aquamarines. I love a rich sapphire colour. But wouldn't wear it in a pink fit.