Uh-mazing

Hey doll-face... Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington dolls have been commissioned by Barney's New York.

Damn - I didn't realise it was possible to actually covet doll's hair.

splashing out

Am I now officially in love with pinupgirlclothing? Why yes I am. Do I keep darting back to check on luscious items of clothing even though I have a story due today? Oh, um, yes. However, did I find the world's most perfect red vintage style swimsuit which makes it all worthwhile? Yeah baby.

Now, as my knee rehabilitation process will involve swimming, water walking and water running would it not be a sensible idea to do so in the world's most smoking hot swimsuit.

Wow, nearly deafened by the chorus of "Yes'm" I just heard.

Thank you.

friday's flowers

I love a sweet-smelling full-blown rose. I'm thinking I need to gather a vase-ful for my desl/ Don't you?

flat out

So, I have a ball to attend in two weeks - and a bung knee. Bung knees and heels do not mix. Sad? Yep. Seeking options? Hell yeah. I found these red! sparkly! flats at pinupgirlclothing.com which, as you can imagine had beautiful heels I had to avert my eyes from they were so pretty.

I've also had to revise my clothing options. If I'm going flat I'm also going close to floor-length so my shoes won't be the focus of my outfit {um, yes, I realise that red! shiny! ballet flats won't exactly blend into the background - but you know what I mean...} Luckily I think I'm able to put together an outfit that once accessorised will look utterly ball-worthy. I have a fabulous black Laura Ashley skirt I bought years back that's long, full and has three layers that are bordered by a beautiful pale french grey silk. So pretty. I've also got a lovely Karen Millen Bolero - black, sparkly and bordered with, wait for it, pale french grey silk. Combined with a simple camisole, Coco Chanel-esque layers of beads, great make-up and something special with my hair and I'll be ready to go. All I need is the shoes.

Red? Sparkly? Yes?

totally unreal

So, reality television. It's been around for a while. So if you're keen to be a participant, chances are you've watched a bit of it and understand that you're going to become a 'character'. If not, then you're an idiot.

I've been sucked deep into the vortex that is Come Dine With Me Australia series 2 and this week I've actually been quite flabergasted by how nasty one of the characters is. Sure, they're all playing a game and putting on a show - I expect them to. But why on earth would you put on a show that leads to you becoming one of the more reviled characters in Australian television history. Bitchiness, judgement, rudeness - seriously, this woman is playing every single character to the hilt and I just can't understand why. Surely she's not naturally such a nasty piece of work...

I know that Reality Raver has been threatened with a lawsuit from the Voldemort {he who shall not be named in case he sues me too...} of the last series - despite him actually being involved in the entertainment industry and using the program as an extensive personal show-real. Unfortunately for him, Paul Robinson was already cast and there's no need for a Mr Nasty on any other soap.

The one benefit of these programs is that no matter how cranky or horrible you've been that day or that week, you can guarantee that there's a larger than life character up on screen who makes you look like Snow White!

something special

A hammock, a green, lush lawn... is there a more perfect spot to while away an afternoon? My perfect afternoon involves lying somewhere slightly shaded, but with enough warmth from the sun for comfort, with a great book and then a quick nap.

Bliss.

What's your idea of bliss?

totally camp*

How is it that one day you're pregnant and the next your baby is heading off on a three day school camping trip? Huh! Monday morning at 7.30am my gal's going to board a bus with her classmates and set off to a school camp on an island in the Hawkesbury River. How fabulous! She's beside-herself-excited and has the list of must-pack items read and re-read 95 times. She's also said things like, "ooh, I'll be having breakfast on Milson Island at this time next week..." bless her socks.

She's had overnight sleepovers - she's had multiple night sleepovers at her grandparents - but this? Wow. I'm thrilled she's getting the adventure, but I can't say I won't be biting my nails while she's gone. What an adventure - let's hope there's lashings and lashings of ginger beer!

* now THIS is officially my 1500 post. Yay me!

what's cooking wednesday

Yes, I'm doing a What's Cooking post even though, strictly speaking, I'm not really up to cooking. After getting the go-ahead from my physio to walk and completely and utterly overdoing it I had a shocker of a day yesterday. A sewer pipe broke, right underneath my favourite rose {no wonder it was so huge and always blooming...} so I had to lose my rose, and had a great big open pit in my front yard. Smelly, and I couldn't use any water. Nice. Thankfully it's fixed now, but we had 24 hours of erk.

Yesterday afternoon I drove to collect my daughter from school as I couldn't find my phone book or mobile and I really hate asking anyone for help. So I hobbled down lots of stairs {12-ish I think} and hobbled across to my car and winced as I drove along. Of course it's my right knee I've injured and when I move my ankle pain shoots up my calf and into my knee. Sigh.

I got to the school gate and got out of the car and then was just overcome with nausea and started seeing stars. When I get ill or in pain I tend to get low blood pressure and tend to faint. So luckily I had two friends who helped calm me down and offered to drive my gal home for the rest of the week.

Being incapacitated really does suck.

So as my husband's ridiculously busy at work I'm trying to work out a way to have decent meals. Luckily I've got leftover meatballs in the freezer so I can sit at a stool and make spaghetti sauce for that tonight. I'm certainly learning to grab everything I need and set it all in place before I start a task!

Here's what we'll have:

Wednesday: spaghetti and meatballs {always make double batches and freeze half!}

Thursday: Steak and salad

Friday: Salmon and salad

Saturday: hamburgers and salad

Sunday: Roast dinner

Monday: chorizo pasta bake

Tuesday: pork and cider casserole

Thank goodness the weather's warming a little and salad seems like a viable option.

Now, whinging over - what's cooking at your place?

look at your man, now look at me

The geniuses behind the Old Spice ads won an Emmy - as they damned well should. Seriously, those ads = brilliance. Did you see their series of Twitter/YouTube responses? No? Well by jingo by crikey go Google them. I spent far-too much time when they were live going through them and nearly chocking on my own saliva laughing hysterically and simultaneously being in awe of the quick-witted script-writers {oh, and yes, drooling at Mr Old Spice himself, c'mon, I'm human}.

My faves? The Alyssa Milanos... Gold.

le luscious

You know what'd look great with the shoes below? Christina Hendricks.

How utterly delicious does she look at the Creative Emmys!

let's pretend...

There was no way on earth I could possibly have posted a shoe of the week yesterday - but today let's pretend that there is a high heel in my foreseeable future...

If there is, please let it be something as Fabulous as these Alexander McQueen numbers I found over at net-a-porter. I do love a cherry red shoe - and look, cuteness, wee lil skulls!

Yesterday I overdid it knee-wise. My physio told me I was allowed to walk without crutches and I decided to become all inspired by The Proclaimers {'and I will walk 500 miles, and I will walk 500 more...'}. So last night involved swelling, ice and elevation. Le sigh.

I'm going to try to take it easy today. I've got my fitball pumped up and under my desk to elevate my leg and I'm going to keep walking to an absolute minimum. Luckily I've got lots of work to keep me chained to my desk!

monday {no moaning required}

I've just returned from the physio and the good news is that I'm not a hypochondriac. The bad news is that I have torn cartliage and probably have snapped my ACL - a rather important ligament whose job seems to be to hold the top half of your leg and the bottom half together. The physios were talking operations, I'm thinking slow recovery.

The other good news is that I can walk, with just one crutch now just in case. I'm also allowed to ride my bike when the weather clears {mainly because I put my left foot down, rather than my right}.

It's the same injury my husband suffered with a few years back so I know what to expect. Considering that he had the operation and doesn't have 100 per cent use of his knee I'm erring on the 'do what you can to recover and strengthen side'. I won't play netball again - but I was ready to give up playing anyway. Cycling's perfect - as is swimming - so it just means rethinking what I'm capable of doing and finding something new.

How was your weeekend?

almost spring

Can't you just smell spring in the air? Blossoms are bursting out on bare branches, new growth is showing itself throughout the garden and there's a decidedly warm breath to the air.

Bliss.

sunny saturday

Morning all. We're off to vote in a tic - I'm hoping there's a cake stall selling pretties such as these - ooooooh.

Enjoy your Saturday lovelies xx

drawing the line

My first election in which I was eligible to vote I just voted for the party my dad voted for. One mark, above the line and I was outta there. However, pretty soon I realised that I could have more power. While my single vote may not elect a party - voting below the line was the clearest message I could send saying "I like YOU the least". Oh, the fun I had choosing who I'd put last on my senate sheet. For years Mr Fred Nile got the tick. Then Pauline Hanson came along and I had to decide "Who's the least worst?" I did a bit of sleuthing, checked out a few of the party's How To Vote cards and walked out knowing that when the numbers were added up my least-liked pollies were getting a message.

That's why I was dumbfounded when I heard Mark Latham was advocating a Donkey Vote - leaving the papers blank to "Show 'em". Um, show 'em what exactly? That you don't care who runs our country? That you don't care who's in senate that can pass or block important policy? That you can't be arsed finding a political party or independent you believe will best represent you in parliament?

This matters. I want to know that my vote can send people who have similar opinions to my own to hold a position of power. Wendy from Family First? Um, she's in the "Hell No" pile. I've seen a few of her opinions retweeted on Twitter and at first giggled thinking she was a faux twit. Nope, she's just a twit in the oldest sense of the word. Scarily there are some ignorant, obstinate people out there who can hold more power than an entire political party. If my placing them at 99 on the senate sheet can help stop that then yay, the political process has power.

Now, I'll be standing on crutches filling out my how-to-vote cards tomorrow. It won't be comfortable, but I've found a site that helps. https://www.belowtheline.org.au/ is a site where you can sit back in front of your computer, go through your options and print out your very-own How To Vote card that you can take into the polling booth and copy while you're standing there. Much less time consuming than trying to work out who's the best and worst of a very bad bunch.

We live in a democracy where we have the ability to vote and have our votes counted equally. Let's take advantage of this shall we?

PS: I customised my How To Vote in 15 minutes - and that included time spent pulling up a new window to google unfamiliar parties such as Senator On-Line and Building Australia. I made a PDF and printed it and it's ready to go - looks just like the real senate paper. Now I have that song "I've got the power!' in my head...

guess who?

Unless you sneakily spied her name on the cover is there any way you'd guess this was Marion Cotillard on the cover of the Septembre issue of French Vogue? Eyebrows huh - who'd've thought they were so defining.

I do love this cover though...

friday fleurs

Here are my birthday hyacinths, now gone, but not forgotten. I do love a scented flower, and if they've got pretty blooms much the better. I noticed that our jasmine's now starting to bloom so I'll have to ask my gal to pick me a stem or two to place in a little jug beside my bed - dreams are always sweeter when they're scented with home-grown flowers.

My gal and I are off to a friend's house this afternoon for a mums and kids catch-up. She has the perfect outdoor entertaining backyard with a big veranda, pool and massive yard for kids to play in. She's also the perfect host so it shall be buckets of fun. I'll only have the one champers - can barely negotiate stairs and crutches when I'm not tiddly {ps: the french word for tiddly - pompette - "Je suis un peu pompette" sounds much nicer than "I'm a little sozzled" does it not?}.

Hubby and the gal are going to finish off painting the hall and the vestibule area outside the study - and they'll probably go for a bike ride or 70. They went out last night to buy a bike pump and came home with a new bike for a certain young miss. She needed it. We worked out that she was 17cm too tall for her other bike. Five foot tall at the age of 10 - with her legs taking up around 4 feet of that height... So she's now got a pretty pale green adult-sized bike. Chuffed? Oh yes indeedy.

Enjoy your friday. I'm going to spend the day writing. I have a footstool under my desk to elevate my leg and I'm ready to go. Speak to you soon.

dr google

At best, I'm a suggestible hypochondriac. When I read about a symptom, I will then tend to experience it. So you can imagine what Dr Google's like for me. While I'm waiting till 9am Monday to have my knee injury officially diagnosed, I've been calling on good ol' Dr Google to help me sate my curiosity. Bad move.

Because no two injuries or symptoms are exactly alike I could have anything from a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament that may well require reconstructive surgery to a simple cartliage tear or strain that just requires rest.

A sensible person would stop googling phrases such as "Knee popping sound".

Oh, to be a sensible person...

magical moments

Some times it's really important to make the effort. Last night I slowly hobbled out of my house to take my daughter and niece to see a play. An amazing play. A beautiful play. And a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

A theatre company from Verona were in Australia and for two nights they were performing Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince at the local Italian football club. For $15 you got a meal, dessert and a play. Bargain. Two men took to the little stage: parents sitting at the tables sated after finishing fine bowls of pasta, kids perched on the floor in front of the stage. Simply by cutting pieces of paper into a series of shapes these two men drew us into this beautiful tale. A tale of friendship, good deeds, sacrifice, hardship and the ultimate happy ending. In a mix of English and Italian, with much humour and enthusiasm we were all taken away and ensconced in this beautiful story.

I may have had to negotiate many damned tricky stairs on my crutches to get there - but to see the look of delight on my daughter and my niece's face was worth it. And, not-so-secretly, it was totally worth it for this big kid too. I might be walking on crutches - but I will be off them soon and back to normal. I might never play netball again, but I've had years of playing fun behind me - and years of coaching to look forward to.

Walking in someone else's shoes, or in my case, in crutches really makes you consider the hardships so many people undergo daily. My grandfather was involved in a serious motorbike accident when he was 18 or 19. It smashed his knee severely and he spent the rest of his life using a cane or crutches to get around. Every. Day. He lived to his 80s so that's 60 years of never rising easily from a chair, and awkwardly negotiating steep, narrow stairs that are barely wide enough for a foot, let along a foot and two crutches. My pain can be dulled by nurofen, he lived with pain every day. But he still lived a full life. He used to go out the front of his house, dive in the lake a swim a mile every day before breakfast until the last few years of his life. He drove his ute around town with his beloved dog Missy in the back, he went away on shooting trips with his friends and he laughed. A lot.

He cooked a mean stew, and always had a spoonful of honey in his tea from an enormous bucket that was kept on the kitchen bench. He lit the open fire every day and toasted bread on a long, home-made toasting fork. He smoked a pipe or rolled a cigarette and sat in the same chair in the corner - the one with the best view down the hill and over the lake.

I miss him. His advice still rings in my head. He taught me about financial responsibility and about what's important in life. He called me "Iddles" or "Uncumfoodles" and my daughter "The Perfect Baby". I still have two treasured photos of four generations of my family: my daughter, me, my dad and my Poppa.

He was my Happy Prince.

tea time?

I'm loving this whole having-people-do-things-for-you-while-you-just-lie-on-a-couch-scenario. So far my in-laws have washed and remade my daughter's bed, mopped the kitchen floor, tidied kitchen cupboards, watered the garden and made me cups of tea. AND there are two meals ready to go in the fridge. I love these people.

Now, I was just going through my iPhone photos and found this close-up I promised of my violet tea cup - pretty isn't it? It's one of a matching pair that resides on the wee bookcase in my study and I heart it so.

You know what else I heart? Clean hair. Yep, managed to stand on one leg long enough to wash my hair which was so desperately in need of a wash it'd almost merged into one giant dreadlock - or, my greatest fear - undergone felting {a weird condition where girls with long hair can just wake up one morning and their hair has all fused together, felt-like, into a dreadlock - used to be the condition I feared most after spontaneous combustion... yep, used to watch far too many of those "Freaky But True" TV shows...}.