Pinky's Book Link

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Pinky's Gender Bender



So, on Monday, a few of the teachers had to take the sporting kids to a ‘practise’ athletics carnival. Some teachers (not the lethargic, non-physical, unco-ordinated Pinky), had to accompany our sports teacher to this event. These lithe and nimble teachers were mandated to offload their classes on to the less energetic types such as myself while they were away for the day.

I saw on my allocated list I was to be delegated eight extra students from a lower grade, Eight! Since I only had four of my own students scarpering off to the ‘practise’ carnival, I voiced my concerns to the teacher who’d flagrantly offloaded her kids on to me.

“Just shut up, Pinky!” she bellowed at me as she huffed off. “Deal with it, Princess!” 

When the forlorn urchins turned up at my door in the morning I noticed there were seven boys and one girl. My immediate thought was that it was a bit cruel to send just one girl, with no friend, amongst a bunch of testosterone fuelled, rambunctious lads.

My second thought was that the cow had sent me seven freakin boys.

Don’t get me wrong. I love boys. I gave birth to four of my own. But I know full well how much trouble they can be. They just have so much... vitality.

The first little boy entered the class in tears.

“Why on Earth are you crying?” I asked him. “Is it because you’re in my class instead of being with your grade three teacher?”

He nodded despondently, tears threatening to spill over onto the worksheets he clutched in his tiny hands as he stared up at the dragon grade four teacher.

“Don’t be scared of me!” I growled. “No one else is.” 

I directed him to the cheeky faces of my own class, grinning in confident self-importance at him from their seats.

The solitary, little girl walked in through the door, her brown ringlets bouncing and a nervous expression on her face. She was such a pretty little thing.

“You sit beside Sharleen, my darling,” I said to her. “What’s your name, precious?”

“Trevor,” she replied.

“Sorry? What was your name again?”

“Trevor.”

“Could you spell it for me, darling?” I asked, thinking it was most probably ‘Treavahh', or even 'Ptrevar' (with a silent P).

“T.R.E.V.O.R.” she said, her voice taking on an impatient air.

‘Strange name for a girl,’ I thought. ‘Oh well, takes all sorts I suppose.’

Anyway, I sat the seven extra boys up in the back row where they worked industriously on their assigned sheets. I only had to shoosh them a couple of times.

Little Trevor sat at the front, between two of my gentlest girls and thoroughly enjoyed her day, colouring in unicorns with the girl’s glitter pens and nattering and giggling away with them in muted tones. 

She was such a sweet little thing.

It wasn’t until today, when I was on duty outside the junior boys’ toilets and saw Trevor, walk out wiping his hands on his shorts, that I realised he was actually a boy.

According to his teacher, he’s usually the typical fractious, hormone driven, trouble making boy-boy.

And yet Trevor was such an angel in my classroom?


Did I just do a reverse gender-stereotyping thing?

Monday, July 27, 2015

Pinky's Red Light District

This is actually me. True.


It looks as though I’m about to endure some undesired, early mornings. 

The bedroom blinds we recently had cleaned and repaired, fell down in a spontaneous, malicious fit of spite this afternoon and Scotto is away for the week so he won’t be putting them back up anytime soon.

Our bedroom faces south east so I expect the sun will blast through the window at some ridiculous hour. I’ll have to get dressed in the dark so I don’t traumatise any innocent person walking their bull mastiff past the house because you can see everything in the bedroom with razor sharp clarity when the lights are on. 

People driving past the house at night will have a panoramic view of me dressed in my enchanting cow pajamas, tucked in bed, reading my kindle each night. 

Image Credit


Maybe I could pull a chair up to the window, put on a clown wig and just sit staring out with a demonic, twisted smile painted on my face. I could scare away the ibis that steal the cat’s food, not to mention those annoying junk mail people.

Or I could put a red light on in the background and sit on the chair in the nuddy except for a feather boa around my neck. Someone might call the police about the weirdo woman at Number 29 and I could get the cops to put the blinds back up for me after I explain that it’s just that my husband has gone away for the week and I miss having a man around the house.


I’m a bit cranky because it cost a lot of money to have the bloody things cleaned and repaired and I think some slats were chipped and cracked as they crashed down in their magnificent display of bastardry. I’m not sure because I’m too frightened to look.

I’d like to blame the blind repair man who clearly failed to put them back up properly but it turned out his daughter played basketball with Lulu some years ago and he seemed like such a nice man I don’t think I can ring and abuse him.

This is why I never contract friends to do jobs for me.


I suppose I could hook up a sheet across the window frame. That’s going to look lovely and redneck isn’t it? Maybe I should scatter some empty wine bottles across the front lawn to complete the unrefined ambiance. 

Although the red light in the window sounds like more fun.

What do you think? Clown or red light?

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Warning: Politically Incorrect Joke Ahead!



We’re lucky in North Queensland because the only animal that might attack you on land is a crocodile. I live opposite a river and there have been plenty of ‘Beware… Crocodiles!’ signs put up over the years. I don’t mean the dainty, mild mannered, freshwater crocodiles either, I mean the toothy, saltwater, bad boys.

The thing is if you’re confronted by a crocodile as you’re walking along the river, you can always scramble up a tree to escape its jaws. The beauty of crocodiles is they can’t climb trees whereas bears can, and so can lions. Whenever I go for a walk, I keep my eyes peeled for suitable trees to climb should a crocodile decide to scale the riverbank and lunge at me. I like the look of the ones with low branches because I don’t have much upper body strength.

We were having this discussion last night just before bed and I thought it might be an interesting blog post so I jotted down the word ‘crocodile’ on a note beside my bed so I wouldn’t forget about it.

Aren’t you glad?

It’s not very interesting at all really, is it? I don’t know why it seemed so riveting last night.

Wine, I suppose.

Scotto told me an extremely politically incorrect joke last night which I also thought would be something you’d like to read about and I jotted it down… but now I’m having second thoughts.


I was very excited when he started to tell me because Scotto rarely tells me jokes due to the fact I never laugh at them.
This one had to be funny.

“And then the guy said, ‘No. He choked on a sock’Scotto finished off with the punchline and waited for me to snigger.

I sat in silence digesting it for a while. “You must have got it wrong, Scotto,” I frowned. “That’s not even slightly funny.”

He furrowed his brow in confusion. “No… that’s the joke. I’m sure I got it right,” but I could see him doubting himself.

“Tell it to me again,” I badgered. So he did.

“But that’s just silly,” I argued. “How would a grown man fit in a washing machine? It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” he coughed nervously. “He wasn’t in a washing machine, Pinky.”

“Well, that’s still not funny. Why would there be a sock in the bath?” I was red in the face with frustration by now. I’d never heard such a stupid joke.

“Well, I thought it was funny anyway,” he sulked, gulping down his sav blanc.

Suddenly, the hazy cloud of stupidity cleared from above me, the traffic controllers waved my brain in for landing and I got the joke at last.

I laughed hysterically for fifteen minutes, choked on my own spit and pulled a muscle in my stomach.

I’m not sure if I should publish it on my blog because someone might get upset…

I’ll tell you what, I’ll put it in a small font so don’t read it if you have any qualms about people laughing at serious medical conditions.



Two guys were sitting on a bus and one told the other a joke.

“What do you do if you see an epileptic having a fit in the bath?

Throw in your washing.”

The guy behind them leaned over and said, "I think that's disgusting. My son died in the bath whilst having a fit."

The two men both went white and apologised profusely. “Did he drown?” one of the men asked.

The guy got up to get off and said, "No. He choked on a sock."



It’s awful isn’t it?

Bloody funny though.

Are you slow to get jokes? Got one to share?




Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Old Boilers Wearing Long Hair



I set fire to my hair on Saturday afternoon.

I was carrying a pancake flavoured candle and had my hair out and it must have connected with the flame and before I knew it there was flash of radiant orange shooting up towards my scalp. It smelt appalling… like burnt hair, actually. 


I shrieked, like Nathan Lane in Birdcage and Scotto came running into the room expecting to see one of the dogs ablaze in a fiery fur ball.

Serves me right probably, for having long hair when I’m an old woman.

I’ll be seeing my mother soon when I go down to the Gold Coast and I know she’ll disapprove of how long it is. I’m a bit frightened because I know she hates it with a vengeance. As far as Mum is concerned I should have had it cut off short as soon as I hit forty. She’s not the only one. Some of my friends have suggested I might think about cutting it off… you know, to give it some ‘body’. “You look like Cousin It, Pinky!” was just one sensitive comment among many.

It’s not that I’m trying to look like a teenager. Although sometimes when I’m on a walk, a teenager riding up behind me on his bike will turn around for a gawk as he passes and I can see the expression of horror on his face when he sees what a wizened goblin I am.

It’s just that if my hair’s cut short, it has exactly the same flat, straight, fine texture… except it’s short and makes me look like a radiation victim or a very wrinkled ten year old boy.

Plenty of older women have long hair. I’m not going to put images of Jane Seymour, Courtney Cox, Elle McPherson and Demi Moore up because obviously they’re famous and beautiful and I’m not… but why should the fact I don’t have a personal stylist stop me from having hair long enough to braid?

I had it cut into a short bob a couple of years ago (it was a self-flagellation thing and I deeply regretted it, it’s what I do when I’m hating on myself) and when I walked into the staffroom, the first thing someone said in a shocked voice was, “What have you done to yourself, Pinky?” I held back the tears, somehow, knowing it would take years to grow back.

When I was a little girl my mother made me wear my hair short, like a boy. It was because of the turn I’d put on when she tried to comb out the tangles, I guess. But it’s my choice now and if I want long hair I’ll have it.

When I’m sixty I’ll have a long grey plait and dress like a hippy. When I’m seventy I’ll wear it in an elegant bun and wear pearls. Scotto says he’s fine with it, except he’s jealous because he hasn’t got much hair at all to speak of.

I might never have it cut again and go for the Guinness Book of Records for the oldest woman alive with hair so long she can use it as a lead when she takes her German Shepherd for a walk.

You’d think by the time you reached your mid-fifties, people would stop telling you how to groom yourself wouldn’t you? 

But no, apparently it doesn’t fudging work that way.

Most recent photo of my hair... yes I was a bit pissed... shut up.

What do you think? A trim in order?

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Liebster today, Pulitzer tomorrow!




Lovely lifestyle blogger, Kathy from 50 Shades of Age, has nominated me for a Liebster Award which means I'm mandated to answer some questions. 
Thank you Kathy! See you at ProBlogger soon.

1. What makes you happy? 

Friday afternoon coffee with my girlfriends and long boozy lunches with my husband. I also like long boozy lunches with my girlfriends and morning coffee with my husband. Christmas is pretty fun too. Of course I don’t mind baby’s giggles, puppies and unexpected windfalls either.

2. Why did you start blogging? 

I wrote some whinging stories about my teenagers and I wanted to make them public so I’d garner some sympathy. It didn’t really work as many readers suggested it just made me look like a despicable mother.

3. What is 
best thing anyone has ever said about your blog? 

A few people have said some lovely things but Jo Castro told me ‘Pinky’ is a disarming character and I really liked that. I think she meant disarming as in ‘enchanting’, not that she just wanted to put down her gun and walk away. I hope so anyway.

4. What is one piece of advice you would offer or one saying you live by? 

Don’t pick it or it will never get better. That goes for all sorts of things. (I just made that up off the top of my head but it’s pretty good actually, don’t you think?)

5. What are your top three bucket list items? 

To go to the Oscars, to win a Pulitzer prize and to own a meerkat. If I had a meerkat I would take it with me everywhere in my handbag and call it Timon. 

(I researched it and you can* keep meerkats as pets but they have smelly anal glands, which really won't make too much difference to the atmosphere in our household in the long run.)



* South Africa only.


6. What is your ultimate guilty pleasure? 

Eating an entire loaf of garlic bread instead of a proper dinner (like I did last night). I do like three teaspoons of sugar in my tea as well.

7. What is one product or service you cannot live without? 

Revlon (extra multi-purpose strength).

8. What is your favorite Australian travel destination? 

Sydney. It has shopping, history, pubs, restaurants, beaches and a lot of weird people to stare at. Lots of people walk around talking to themselves in Sydney which can be amusing if you're careful not to make eye contact with them.

9. What two countries make you the happiest to visit? 

I’ve been to England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, France, Belgium, China, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States and I enjoyed them all. Nothing beats Australia though. I literally hug trees when I get back to Australia.



10. What is your dream destination? 

One of those luxury huts over the water in Bora Bora. I’d have a manservant and a woman-servant, a cook and a chauffeur. I’d like glass floors so I could see the fish swimming around and a connecting room for my meerkat.

I would like to nominate these people for a Liebster Award.








But girls! If you've done this before you are welcome to answer these questions instead...

1. What's your favourite and least favourite word?
2. If you found out that due to a mix up at the hospital one of your kids wasn't yours would you give it back? *
3. What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you?
4. The last time you were pulled over by a cop?
5. The first thing you thought when you woke up this morning?
6. What was the last lie you told?
7. If you could have personally witnessed something historical what would it have been?

* You aren't allowed to pick your favourite child to answer this question.

And as for you... feel free to answer any of the questions in the comments! l'd love to hear from you x


Thursday, July 16, 2015

What Famous Person do You Look Like?



With the cold weather I’ve been a bit wheezy. Only at night, when I get into bed and the windows are open and the last remnants of the “Antarctic Vortex” have insidiously spread their tentacles into my bedroom and the temperature has dropped to a freezing 20 degrees Celsius.

Yes, as I lay on my bed last night, my teeth chattering in the tropical nightmare of evaporated sweat, I reached into my handbag to fish out my Ventolin inhaler and noticed it was three years out of date. What would happen if I used it? I wondered. Maybe I’d turn into Spiderman or something. But I didn’t end up using it and just breathed through my nose until the wheezing settled.

I’m not an asthmatic but I do get asthma, just not very often. I get it if I laugh too much, if there’s cold air, if I eat pickled onions and drink some brands of orange juice… or if I drink rum and coke. I persist in drinking rum and coke, but always ensure I have my inhaler on hand because I’m a real Queenslander; bloody oath I am and I’m tough as bricks. What’s a bit of asthma when there’s rum and coke on the table for fudge's sake?

We noticed little Pablo the Chihuahua, was wheezing like a ninety year old emphysema suffering, chain smoker the other night and I looked up on Google to see if dogs get asthma and guess what?… they do.

One of my school friends had asthma when she was young and I remember adults whispering it was “an emotional thing”. Back when I was a child, asthma was associated with a highly strung, delicate personality. It was apparently brought on by a weakness in the thorax and a penchant for the dramatics. In other words, it was a sissy disease. Sufferers were advised to take up swimming or move to Darwin.

But now, I find out even dogs get it.

I went to the chemist to buy a new inhaler today and the girl behind the counter asked me if I was breastfeeding or pregnant and she didn’t even have the usual smirk on her face. I pretended to be unsure. “Noooo, I don’t think so,” I giggled self-consciously. “Let me see, what’s the date?” Then I began counting on my fingers with a ditzy look on my face.

I found it flattering in a way. The trouble is when you get to my age you take anything you can get as a compliment, anything. Although sometimes people think they’re giving you a compliment but you don’t fully agree with the sentiment.

Like the time a guy walked up to me in a night club and told me I reminded him of Cher.

Would you think that was a compliment? Think about it. 

I didn’t.

I’ve also been told I look like Annette Benning and a little known actress, Jenny Agutter.

Annette


Jenny

 Morticia has poked her dark head into comments regarding my appearance as well, quite a lot actually. I really need to rethink the same hairstyle I’ve had since I was fifteen.

I wish...



I've also been told I look like Mrs Bean. That knocked the wind out of my jowls, I can tell you. That friend was put in the 'people I secretly hate but force a smile when with them' file.


I know this post sounds like the roundabout, drunken ravings of a lunatic woman but I think the asthma medication has gone to my head a bit.



Sunday, July 12, 2015

The Big Question: Is Life Pointless?

Boyhood



Scotto and I watched the first 2 hours and 35 minutes of Boyhood yesterday. It runs for 2 hours and 46 minutes but for reasons known only to its spiteful, unpleasant self, the Internet decided to be an arse. 

Scotto was very angry, called the Internet some very rude words and did an imitation of what he thinks the Internet actually looks like.

Scotto as the Internet


We were watching it on Netflix which has been a bit contrary of late and it just stopped and refused to finish the movie. I googled the end of the movie this morning and according to someone on Yahoo Answers (which is my absolute go to for expert advice), it wasn’t worth the film it was printed on anyway because nothing happened. 

Nothing happened for the entire movie when I think about it. 

A boy grew up... big whoopie do.

Boyhood won the 2015 Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture and was nominated for the Oscar so I suppose I don’t know everything after all (although I'd like to know who votes for these things).

The most poignant part of it for me was when both her children had grown up and were nicking off to college and Patricia Arquette broke down sobbing at the kitchen table and uttered the three words that really resonated with me… “What’s the point?”

Lately, I find myself driving along the road on my way to the shop and all of sudden I’m overwhelmed with an empty, maudlin emotion. My insides feel as though they’re falling through space and I have a horrible sensation that everything I do and say, is utterly and inevitably pointless. 

I’ve also been thinking about my children and how they’re all grown up and don’t need me anymore except for when they want me to look after their bitey dog or borrow a potato masher.

I had to write a descriptive paragraph for the online writing course I’m doing the other day and this is what I wrote…

Pinky stepped along the cracked, concrete path where green ants scurried in frantic confusion around a bloated, dead lizard. She ducked under a glittering web where a Saint Andrew’s cross spider hung like an exquisite, yellow jewel and inhaled the sweet air of last night’s rain deep into her lungs. A few more cautious steps around the corner of the trail and she’d see it. Something rasped in the undergrowth with a guttural squawk, making her jump to the left and graze her arm on the bark of the old mango tree. Her children had climbed that tree many years ago, singing out to her from its branches to come and see how far up they had negotiated its sturdy branches. Pinky could almost hear little Lulu’s gurgling laughter as she’d cling to the lowest branch, hanging upside down like a precocious fruit bat. Suddenly, there it was; the cubby house, obscured by meandering vines and its frame bleached by the weather, like the bones of a prehistoric monster discovered in an ancient rainforest jungle. She placed her hand on the ladder, feeling the slimy moss under her cold fingers. It had served them well, this wooden skeleton, this relic. It was going to take a crane to reclaim it from the garden and carry it to its final resting place. But for now, she would sit in it for a while and listen to the babble of her memories.



Is that not a tad sentimental? A jot schmaltzy? 

It’s not me at all, is it?

Not that I want the five hairy creatures hanging around me all the time with their cynical remarks and critical evaluations of my wine drinking habits, but it does seem I did quite a lot of work over the last twenty years to be now relegated to the pitiful nuisance I seem to have become to them.

Do you think they’ll ever come back to me once they’ve established their independence?

Am I just suffering from the empty nest syndrome I always laughingly joked would never strike me?


Or is life just pointless after all and we may as well get fat on Tim Tams and champagne?

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Does Your Husband Like Shopping?

A Room with a View


We’ve been fixing up the house before we put it on the market. Today, all our wooden venetian blinds were taken away by a nice man who’s going to clean and polish them. 


Scotto painted the outside of the house on the lower level and we had professional painters come in and refurbish all the wooden window frames. We’re getting the wooden floor in the foyer sanded and re-polished, new carpets and having our front lawn re-turfed.

What am I doing to clean up the house? Not that much really. I did wipe down the window sills today and pulled a quick on my finger so I'm resting for a while.

We needed a new set of curtains made for the living room and Scotto noticed there was a closing down sale at a local shop so we went in after he’d recorded the window measurements.

We fronted up to the counter on a Saturday morning and the older woman behind the desk looked up at me expectantly.

“We’re looking for some curtains to be made on runners and we heard you’re having a sale,”
Scotto said to her, smiling in his charmingly boyish manner.

She looked at him curiously, then even more curiously back at me. I was feeling a bit off for some reason; dull, tired and lackadaisical (that means, ‘couldn’t give a stuff’ if you’re reading this Kaz). I just stared back at her with the vague expression of someone who’d rather be set on fire than be where I was at the present time; a discount fudging curtain shop.

“The width will need to be about 2500mm and the height, 2130 mm,” Scotto continued cheerily. “We’re looking for something sheer in a cream colour.”

Again, the woman looked at me, but sympathetically this time. I think she thought either I was a bit simple or Scotto was my gay butler.

“It’s usually the woman ordering curtains, not the man, isn’t it,” I finally found the energy to mutter.

This time she appeared to be positively startled, shocked that I wasn’t a daft mute after all.

She managed to find us some suitable material and took down our order but didn’t really pay me any attention after that.

What’s my point in telling you this?

Nothing. Just that I hate curtain shops. I also hate any shop to do with storage, gardening stuff, carpet, tiles, bathroom fittings or computer parts.

Sometimes, Scotto tricks me and says he has to call in to his favourite computer shop to pick up a T.W.A.I.N. interface (that stands for ‘technology without an interesting name’ and sadly has nothing to do with Shania, true by the way).

Techno talk is so out of my bandwidth.

Occasionally I go with him, but sit in the car and stare into space, fuming, for the hour he seems to spend in there. It’s a tiny, little shop but I swear I’ve seen at least 300 people enter it while I’m seething in the car and NO ONE ever comes out.


It’s like the freakin TARDIS! Everyone who enters is of the male persuasion, naturally. I think it must be a fight club or something. One day I’m going to sneak in and see what they’re doing in there. I suspect foul play. I think they’re all playing stupid computer games or something and laughing cruelly about their gullible wives sitting outside in the car. 

It has a different time dimension as well. When Scotto eventually emerges from its seedy confines I screech in an insanely enraged voice, “What took you so fudging long, buster?” and he answers innocently, “What? I was only gone ten minutes.”

The worst thing is, I can’t even punish him by dragging him around to discount curtain shops.



Does your husband like curtain shopping? Does he make you wait when he goes into shops?

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

This Post Could Possibly Offend Someone





This post could offend someone or alienate them. I sincerely hope not. I know how deflating it is to be left out so please get up me in the comments, if somehow I've left you out of the list below.

The mild-mannered and reserved, Hugzilla, wrote a list of things she called, The Idiot's Guide to Not Being a Wanker at Networking Events which has started the ball rolling for posts concerning the ProBlogger Training Event which will take place at the Gold Coast in August.

I am going, even though I closely matched all the 'wanker traits' described by the delightful Hugzilla.

One of the things I'm most terrified about is forgetting names and who goes with which blog. Because of this affliction of mine I have made a 'ready reckoner' of all the Australian blogs I read and the names of the authors.

If you are going too, you might find this helpful.

Not all of these people will be attending but it's a good reference anyway for replying to comments etc.

I follow all of these blogs either on Google +, Twitter, Facebook, Bloglovin or my favourite method, email!
I know, get a life Pinky!

If you'd like to follow Pinky Poinker on email please click on the subscribe link on the right hand side of the blog.

Here's the list... (in reverse alphabetical order for a change).

Happy reading, you'll never have to buy a magazine again!

These bloggers cover travel, fashion, personal development, fitness, parenting, cooking, giveaways, writing, book reviews and a liberal amount of humour!




Z.
Zamamabakes : Dannielle

Y.
Yin Yang Mother : Kathy

W.
Woogsworld : Mrs Woog

Where the Wild Things Were : Lydia

Write of the Middle : Min

With Some Grace : Grace

Wild Western Australia : Bonny

V.
Veggie Mama : Stacey

The Vinyl Edition : Gael

U.
The Urban Mum : Monique


T.
Toilets Aren't For Turtles : Mumma McD

The Thud : Lauren

Tamzen Temple : Tamzen

This Charming Mum : Lara



S.
Sand Has No Home : Dani

Six Little Hearts : Jody

The Sharpest Pencil : Lana

Simplify Create Inspire : Holly

Shauna Round the Corner : Shauna

The Stuff that Comes Out of my Head : John Anthony

Seeing the Lighter Side : Rebecca

Smaggle : Carly

Sonia Styling : Sonia

Styling You : Nikki

Surely Sarah : Sarah

R.
Random Acts of Zen : Lisa

Reservoir Dad : Clint



P.
The Plumbette : Bec

Peachy Keen Mumma : Jess

The Pineapple Cake : Andrea

The Parenting Files : Tahlia

Peace O Mind : Ronnie

Putting in a Good Word : Susan

O.
Our Urban Box : Fleur

Our Parallel Connection : Natalie

N. 
New Life on the Road : Lisa

Nessville : Ness

M.
My Little Drummer Boys : Trish

My Life's a Marathon : Char

The Mummy and the Minx : Robyna

Melting Moments : Kaz and Ang

The Modern Parent : Martine

Max the Unicorn : Di

My Midlife Mayhem : Louisa

Mummy Wife Me : Renee

Musings of the Misguided : Tegan

Middle Aged Mama : Janet

The Multitasking Mummy : Eva

My Home Truths : Kirsty

Making the Mundane Merry : Sue

Mumabulous : Brenda

My Brown Paper Packages : Malinda

The Miss Cinders : Miss Cinders

Magneto Bold Too : Kelley

Meet Me at Mike's : Pip



L.
Life Love and Hiccups : Sonia

Life at Number Five : Lauren

Life Behind the Purple Door : Cate

Life & Other Crisis : Kerri

Life from the Attic : Louise

Living My Imperfect Life : Sanch

The Laney Files : Laney

Lisa Heidke : Lisa

Life Style Fifty : Jo

The Little Mumma : Angie


K.

Kylie Purtell: A Study in Contradictions : Kylez

Keeping up with the Holsbys : Danielle

Kirsten and Co : Kirsten

Be a Fun Mum : Kelly

Kimba Likes : Kimba


J.
J. F. Gibson : Jodi



I.
I Opened My Mouth and it Ran Away Without Me : Rae

I Give You the Verbs : Annette


H.
House Goes Home : Alana

Handbag Mafia : Amy

Hugzilla : Melissa

Have a Laugh On Me : Emily

Help! I'm Stuck! : Ann


F.
Fabulous and Fun Life : Ingrid

From the Left Field : Sasha

Finding Myself Young : Toni

Fifty Shades of Age : Kathy

Fat Mum Slim : Chantelle

Francesca Writes Here : Francesca

Free Range Scotto : Scotto



E.
EmHawker Blog : Emily

Ever-changing Life of a Mum : Erika

Essentially Jess : Jess

Emma's Brain : Emma

D.
Deep Fried Fruit : Leanne

Debbish dotcom : Deb

Denyse Whelan Blogs to Connect : Denyse


C.
Create Bake Make : Lauren

Cooker and a Looker : Amanda

Crafty PJ Mum : Beck

Clairey Hewitt : Clairey


B.
Big Words Blog : Bianca

Bake Play Smile : Lucy

Boy Eats World : Aleney

Barbie Bieber and Beyond : Mandy

Baby Mac : Beth

Boiled Eggs and Soldiers : Victoria

Budget Travel Talk : Jan



A.
A Life Less Frantic : Kelly

Always Josefa : Josefa

Awesomely Unprepared : Kez

An Organised Life : Michelle

The Annoyed Thyroid : Sam

Adventures in Domesticity : Zoe

Agent Mystery Case : Raychael

All Mum Said : Kell

Audio Thing Blog : Bec

A Parenting Life : Rhianna


Okay... who did I accidentally leave out?
Any suggestions?

Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF


Monday, July 6, 2015

How Pinky Hacks Life!



My blogging friend, John Anthony James, wrote recently that he’d just completed the fourth draft of his manuscript, “The King Amongst the Shadows”


I almost died of shock. Who in their right mind would fiddle around with a manuscript that many times? Surely I’d rather burn it than become a slave to it? Who’d have the patience for that? 

A crazy man?

It was about a week later, I realised that I’d planned on calling the second draft of my manuscript, The Bronze Edition, the third draft, The Silver, and the fourth draft (yes, I said fourth) the Gold Edition

This is what I do you see, I regularly fool myself into thinking any daunting task I have to do, is not really what it is. I give it another name so I don’t think I’m doing it. I like to break things down into steps too, so that the tedious task I’m currently doing, doesn’t seem like what I’m actually doing.

For example, yesterday, I knew I had to wash Willy, my silky terrier. He was so filthy he looked like he’d been rolling around in volcanic ash. He looked like something you’d see in a museum in Pompeii and I knew it was going to be a most unpleasant task, possibly inviting a nasty bite which may or may not require a tetanus shot. 

Willy


So I filled the tub in the laundry with hot, soapy water and made myself a cup of coffee, relaxed and pretended I was going to leave it at that. After ten minutes, when the sound of running water was a distant memory in Willy’s mind, I walked out casually to where the matted dog sprawled, sun-baking on the concrete and swooped down on the unwitting creature before he had a chance to bolt. 

I swiftly carried him into the laundry before he had time to blink and plonked him in the tub so that only his head appeared above the rapidly browning bubbles. I let him soak for a bit while his eyes adjusted to the dim light, then pulled out the plug and doused him with a surprise bucket of rinsing water. Before he’d had time to catch his breath, he found himself back outside, wrapped in a fluffy towel with his toenails painted. 

It was more of an alien abduction/kidnapping than a bath really, only there were no anal probes.

When I have to vacuum, I tell myself I’m not really going to vacuum; I’m just getting the vacuum cleaner out of the spider infested cupboard under the stairs. After I’ve done that, I send a few tweets or answer an email and when enough time is passed, I eventually pull that annoying, twisted cord out of its hole and plug it in. 

I might then wipe the kitchen counter down and file my nails before actually switching it on and giving the kitchen a good going over. Once I’ve done the kitchen, I’ll bring a few things in from the clothes line and check the mail. Bit by bit, the entire bottom floor is vacuumed but somehow I’ve tricked myself into thinking I’m not really doing it.

Getting out of bed and going to work can be challenging so I tell myself I’m not really going to work, I’m just getting a coffee to take back to bed. 

As I’m driving to work I imagine that once I’m there I’m just going turn around and go home again. When I’m in the classroom, I tell myself that at morning tea I’m going to feign illness and go home. 

By lunch time, the day is almost over so I make a promise to myself I’ll be taking a sick day off tomorrow and surely I can get through one more hour. I do this right through until Friday when it’s the weekend. On Sunday night, I begin the entire ridiculous charade over again. 



Cooking dinner; I get the saucepans out then I sit with a glass of wine and watch the local news. After that I might pour some oil into the saucepan and take the meat and vegetables out of the fridge. I’ll go back and watch more television. Later, I might cut something up and chuck it in the saucepan. I’ll meander in and out, sipping wine and watching the telly. In my mind, I’m not really cooking; I’m cruising in the kitchen and having a nice time.



It doesn’t always work of course. Sometimes, silly and gullible as I am, I can’t even fool myself.

What's your favourite life hack?

Linking up with Jess from Essentially Jess for #IBOT