On Parks and Photography

One of the things that I've started up this year is a photography course. A proper, whizz-bang, fancy one that takes a few years and if you finish it you can call yourself "professional". I've done a few short courses over the years - both online and 'in person' - and always felt that I wanted more. So I bit the bullet and signed up. Two nights a week I sit in a classroom full of wonderful, friendly, creative, full-time working crazies who are passionate about photography and really, really, really want to learn the craft. I'm loving it. We're about a month in and we've just started getting to the juicy bits of 'camera craft' (the technical bits) and 'design theory' (the arty bits).  I'm increasingly finding myself multi-tasking with E, taking pictures for my assignments while taking her to the park or walking her to childcare.

So here she is, absolutely loving the park and getting super dizzy on the whizzy-dizzy (is that what it's called?).   And there's me, crazy Mama, trying to perfect a technique called 'panning' while satisfying a 1 year olds need to go high (but not too high) on a swing so that she can feel the wind in her hair.

 

Wedding Shawls

I'm knitting myself a wedding shawl. It's traditional and lacy and to be perfectly honest I'm a bit over my head with the nupps and the double yarn overs and the ridiculously thin wool.  I'm a little worried that when I block it all out it's just going to look a jumbled mess of holes where there's supposed to be a pattern. But it's a nice distraction from the, you know, important bits of getting married like planning the ceremony and writing vows. I'm finding that planning a wedding has brought up all these "things" that I need to think about that I really never considered before. I say "things" because saying they're issues gives them more importance than they really ought to deserve. I'm not sure that they even matter at all and perhaps I'm just other thinking it.  You see, I'm not sure I like the idea of someone (anyone) walking me down the aisle. And I'm a little confused about what to do with my name - the great to change or not to change has reared its head and I've managed to tie myself in knots over-thinking the feminist, cultural and fashion cycles of the great name-change debate.  So rather than thinking these issues through and coming to some kind of rational answer, I knit. Slow, painstaking stitches while filling the rest of my mind with repeats of the West Wing. I think it is perhaps the best antidote to wedding over-think-ery I know.

International Women's Day

I couldn't let today go by without a saying something in this little neglected space of mine.  As much as anything, today has become the day where I take stock and do a bit of thinking about the where's and how's of my life.  I'm pretty busy at the moment and at a loss to say much except this: today is important. It's important for so many reasons - on a global stage so many women still lack the basic freedoms that most of us take for granted. Here in Australia, despite over half of university graduates being women, there is a dearth of women taking up positions of influence and power in the media, in politics, on corporate boards and in hospital departments.  Maternity (and paternity) leave entitlements are inadequate and support for childcare is, well, almost non-existant.  Yes, it might sound a little blah. blah. But it's important, and today is the day to do a bit of thinking about it. 

Happy International Women's Day everyone!

Activity Book

 I made E an Activity Book for Christmas. It took me hours and hours of work. As with many crafty endeavours it took much longer than I had ever anticipated; lots of sewing long into the night using up small scraps of fabric that had been squirrelled away.  My inspiration (as so often happens these days) came from Pinterest. There are six pages but this one is "just right" for now - animal finger puppets that can be taken in and out of the barn, placed on fingers and the animals noise made to squeals of delight. It's just how I hoped it would work!

William Ricketts Sanctuary

Not so very long ago I took M out to visit William Rickett's sanctuary in the Dandenong ranges.  It's a funny place - a labyrinth of mossy paths criss-crossing the hillside and dotted with Catholic Church inspired Aboriginal sculptures. The sanctuary is smaller than I remembered, we managed to walk around it in half an hour or so, but the light is just as beautiful as I remember.

twenty-six

Image:  Lime Crime  on Flickr

I've been poking about in the corner of my blog and I came across a somewhat alarming statistic. I posted a measly 26 times in 2012. Wow. For those who have stuck around through my absenteeism, thank you. For those who encouraged me to keep going, thank you too. I'm going to aim for better this year. There are no big plans, just little ones, but I know I can do better than 26. 

Ita

I am the first to admit that I knew almost nothing about Ita Buttrose before listening to this podcast. I kind of dismissed her as "the Women's Weekly" editor, always looking perfectly vacuous with her blow-dryed bob, perfect manicure and chiselled eyebrows. Truth be told I dismissed her as an airhead with nothing of any import to say except, perhaps, for how to make a delicious meal for less than $10 and the best way to get grass stains out of clothes. Had I actually stopped to think about it, I might have guessed that a woman who managed to successfully swim to the top of the Australian media fishbowl in the 70s might have had a thing of two to say about women in media and the role that the Australian media is currently playing in belittling our current Prime Minister*.  She also has a lot to say about the failure of women to progress beyond talking about the issues she was writing about in the 70s; equal pay, flexibility in the workforce and that not-so-mythical mythical glass ceiling. By the end of the podcast I wanted to read her book and there was just a little bit of me that wanted to be just like her. Passionate, feisty, ambitious and nice.  

*For the record, Ita has fairly strong views on who should be able to comment hair colour, bottom size and choice of shoe - funnily enough it's not the media, nor is it a stranger and probably not even a friend. Because personal attacks like this aren't nice and above all Ita is nice.