“We don’t share personal stuff with strangers,”  said George Clooney’s character in some movie I’m watching late at night, because: George Clooney.  I’m not particularly interested in this crap, but: George Clooney.

I nearly jumped off the couch.  Who ever heard of not sharing with strangers?  Aren’t strangers the best people to share with?  Because most of you lot don’t really know me, so I can be however I want.  I can tell you how I am, rather than show you with my actions.  I can be the best me on here, and with no real effort.  You gotta love that.

You didn’t even know the Country Road ladies said I needed Spanx until I told you.  And I don’t have to show you my flabby bum in my selfies- there’s a cropping function on iPhoto.  You don’t know I yelled at my kid this morning for acting like a brat, or that I snuck a late night snack into the other kid tonight after he’d already cleaned his teeth.  You don’t have to know that I know all the words to “The Black Widow” and sing and narrate it like I’m on X-Factor when I’m in the car.  You don’t know I tell the television off when nonsense ads for Dettol or Nurofen are on.  You don’t know that I wear my dressing-gown as clothing when I’m at home in the winter, or that I have saved every letter that I’ve ever been written.

It seems that Ben Elton wasn’t far off the mark in his Orwellian “Blind Faith”, so I suspect it won’t be long until the people without the blogs are the weird ones.  The ones not to be trusted, even though behind the screen we can be whoever we want to be.  We can show any kind of shiny self we like.

What a strange world it is, don’t you think?

…From The Ashers xx

10pm. No blog ideas.

Check Instagram.  Still no ideas.

Check Twitter.  Nothing.

Check Facey.  Nup.

Check Twitter again.  Gaza, Tony Abbott, something something, Mike Carlton.  Nothing.

Check Insta.  Someone’s cat.  Macarons.

Check Twitter. Start Twitfight over how shit macarons are.  Still no blog ideas.

Check Facebook.  Niece posted recipe.

10.27pm.  Turn on oven to 180 degrees.

Mix one cup Nutella, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, half cup plain flour, 1 egg.  Spoon the mix out and bake for 10mins.

When slightly cooled, sprinkle with sea salt.

Nutty, salty, chocolate bix.  You’re welcome.

Thankyou and g’night.

PS Thanks Tillster.

…From The Ashers xxx

If you heard a really loud bang / gunshot / thunderclap sound this morning, don’t be alarmed, it was just me.  Patting myself on the back.

You see, we still have baby monitors in the children’s rooms (Because: mental), and so, as they were getting ready for school this morning, I could hear some lovely singing coming from their rooms.  They were harmonising together in a lovely unison, that can only be achieved with the voices of siblings (Think: Jack and Meg White, Vicka and Linda Bull.. You get my drift.)

The reason for my back-patting-ness, was that they were singing The ABC song.  You know the one, that ends with “Now I know my A-B-Cs, next time won’t you sing with me.”  I was thinking to myself how lovely it was, in this day and age, that they had managed to maintain their innocence in such a world.

I felt like had achieved the trifecta this very day:

1. Children that were independent enough to be getting themselves ready for school.

2. Children that were naive and shielded enough from the horrors of the world that they would sing such a lovely little litany.

3. Children who enjoyed each other’s company so much that they would sing sweetly to together, whilst happily getting ready.

So I gave myself a big pat.  A really big one.  I wondered if anyone else was as good a parent as me.  I mean “Us”.  (Of course.)

They got to the end of the song, and where I expected to hear the familiar lyrics, they sang something else.  The quality of the baby monitor wasn’t sufficient to pick up the exact words, so I went in to see what they were singing.  It went a little like this:

“Now I know my ABCs, 

Gummy Bears are after me,

One is red,

One is blue,

One is peeing in my shoe.

One of them has got a knife,

Now I’m running for my life.”

As Liam mimed something that would have put the shower scene from Psycho to shame.

Nothing wrong with my our parenting.

Are your kids also psycho?  C’mon, tell me they are.

…From The Ashers

I did a talk this weekend at a seminar.. I won’t bore you with the whole thing, but here is the last bit.  As you RRs will know, there’s been a bit of Sex Ed going on around at The Asher’s lately, so I used quotes from “Where Did I Come From?” to punctuate my talk like an English essay.  I also handed out tiny mirrors at the start, so you’ll have to improv.

Here goes:

So far the master heart is this one:

My friend Rose got it for me, and it’s carved from sandstone by kids in Africa who were previously sent down into the mines.  So maybe, buying these rocks saves lives. Or makes lives better.

Either way, it has become a bit of a touchstone in the office.  Every child wants to touch it, and hold it, and we say that if we wish for our heart’s true desire when we hold it, our wish will come true.  Eventually.

It’s fun to hear what the children wish for.  I remember their wishes, and I love seeing how those wishes change over time.  Some kids keep at the same wish until they get it, and some, of course, chop and change all over the place.  I’m interested to see how that will play out, in the adults they become.

If there wasn’t so many of you here I’d love to pass my wishing heart around the room.  To let each of you hold it for a moment, and say out loud your secret wish.  The thing that you would have, or do, or be, if you could remove the limits of your mind.

Do you know what your heart’s true desire is?

Does your heart softly whisper something to you in the middle of the night?

Can you see something, just over there, at the edge of your peripheral vision that you’d really love to do?

Is it possible to let that little thing grow a little, gather some momentum, and maybe even become a thing?

Could you tell me what it is?

Or could you tell my heart?  Because if we spoke together, your heart and mine, I think they could make it happen.

“Where Did I Come From?” can have the last words. Pick up your little mirror and look at those eyes.

“You may think it sounds like a lot of hard work, for such a little person.  But there’s a very good reason why we should go through it all, this Journey.  And if you want to know what that reason is, just take a look in the mirror.

It is all for you.”

It’s been a big week, in that I have spent a fair amount of it procrastinating, so let us hope that is over now.  The whining has been substantial… So you can all stop now okay?  The talk is written.  We also had a really cold day here.  So that was a bit shit.  But we are back to blue skies and a crisp blue horizon again today.  Whew.

Without further ado, here are the hits:

1.  Coco’s hair this morning.  On Thursdays I start work early, so I don’t do her hair for her.  I went into the bathroom and caught her admiring herself this morning.  I wanted to share a pic with you, but for some reason it won’t load (??!).

So let me describe it: headband put on almost diagonally, so that it looked decidedly uncomfortable, one side near the ear the other near the occiput, a “low pony” but not tight enough, so that it was half falling out, with said low pony about eight centimetres left of centre, so that all of her just-past-bob-length hair on the right had fallen out, and, to complete the look, speed humps galore.

Without wanting to be mean (for clearly she thought she looked schweeet) I said “Oh Sweetie, did you do your own hair?”  (“Or did the cat do it?” I was thinking).  “No, Daddy did it.  Isn’t it great?”  “Yes”, I said, it’s great, now sit here and let me enhance it.”

I suspect Nathan is quite good at, um, carpenting things.

2.  These things:

Does it count if you’re melting them in your mouth?

I purchased them accidentally this week (I meant to get the dark choc version), and we all know that is it illegal to let something as sweet and innocent as this go to waste.  So I’m eating them. All.  They are going down very easily, even if my throat does have a sugar burn right now.  I Quit Sugar?  It seems the answer is no.  I blame Cadbury- the packaging is very similar to the ones I wanted…  Touche chocolate manufacturer and marketing team, touché.  (Yes, yes, I know Cadbury is bad chocolate. I know I should be eating cacao nibs or something, but I just can’t resist that velveteen purple sheen.)

3.  I’ve mentioned to you before how much I love the internets, and the kind people you come across on here, yes?

Well check this out:  Last week I read  this article in Kidspot by Lana Hirschowitz regarding a robotic toy called Sphero.  As “I know” Lana via Twitter, I sent her a message asking her if she had a Sphero, and if she thought it was as good as the excellent advertising campaign suggests.  Turns out she had a Sphero her kid didn’t want, and offered to send it to me for the Evil Geniuses.

For free.

I said I would buy it from her, and at least pay the postage, but she was having none of it.  Don’t you just think that’s amazing?  Lana doesn’t know me, or the brats, and yet, she went out of her way to go to the post office, pay to send it, etcetera, etcetera.  The kindness of strangers.

Here are the geniuses receiving it on Jammie Day:

Look at them: Liam is chuffed and is IN NO WAY sharing that thing with Coco, who is more interested in posing for the ‘receiving a package’ shot.

And here is Sphero.  His name is Charles.

Charles. The Sphero. He is a ball. Bloody hell, now I’m even personifying him.

4.  Now, I may have mentioned one or two a thousand times that I am giving a speech at a seminar this Saturday, so I required an outfit befitting my professionalism and maturity.  So of course, last Sunday I was to be found at Country Road, Maroochydore.  I’ve gotta tell you: OH MY GOD.  I had the most amazing, personalised, funny, attentive service in the known world.  I can’t remember if I’ve told you about the chicks in our local CR before, so if I have please skip ahead, for I shall be rhapsodising.

When you get to my age you can sometimes become a little invisible in shops.  Youngies don’t want to serve you, and real Oldies are more interested in straightening shelves.  Not this lot.  It was like I had a personal shopping team.  They were bringing me in things to try, gushing and complementing, and then bringing more.  They were placing jackets and scarves on me as though they were the Queen’s robes, then scuttling off to find more accoutrements.

They even gave advice on appropriate undergarments (of which I share with you next week, but for now I have one word: contraceptive), as we shared anecdotes of The Menopause and the best skincare required to combat the dreaded desert derriere.

Needless to say, I exited with the Motherlode of white bags.  Well played CR, well played.

5.  Nathan.

As I type this he is applying the heat gun (Who knew there was such a thing? I was using a travel-sized hairdryer) to some particularly ugly photo frames to remove 130 small mirror tiles that I NEED for my talk on the weekend.  You see, I decided yesterday that I simply must have mirrors.  One hundred and thirty of them.  And no shop in Noosa had any more than eight.

And then I found these, googled “removing mirrors” and found that it would be a cinch.  It isn’t.  And yet, HOTY is doing it.  At 10pm.  Nathan, the chiropractic profession is lucky to have you.  (Especially as I left it so late that I missed the  Audio Visual cutoff time for the presentation, and I do need some kind of gimmick….)

So there you have it, the HITS as I see them.  Wish me luck on Saturday, I’ll be the one vomiting with nerves in the dunnies at 3pm and trying to do a panic wee whilst wearing Spanx (Doh!  I gave the underwear post away).

What are your hits?  C’mon, gimme one at least.

…From The Ashers xx

So what happened next?  This:

The easy way out

I made them sit on the couch and read it together.  They managed to read it all without carrying on too much, even the creepy bits.

I sat next to them in case of hyperventilation or freak outs.  Nath busied himself with lots of throat clearing and footy cheering.  I told him to “shut up, this is important.”  He was silent after that, possibly in case he would be recruited to say the word vagina or something.

At the end of the book I said, “Any questions, comments or concerns?”   And there were none.  So there you have it, birds and the bees sorted.

I had another two volumes ready: What’s Happening To Me?  (A pink one for the ladies and a blue one for the gents, FFS)

Liam read it as his bedtime story, and in the morning he said it was “Not bad, but there was nothing about pimples.  I wanted to read about pimples, and maybe see some pimples, I can’t wait until I get pimples.”  So it seems like the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Coco read a chapter and pronounced it “Bore-ring” and went back to Go Girl.  So apparently it’s more interesting to read about a kid getting hit in the face by a netball.

Here endeth the education.

Have you had “the talk” yet?

…From The Ashers xx