Photo by the amazing Fe Lumsdaine

This photo was taken two months ago – hard to believe time has passed so quickly since – at the Digital Parent Conference in Sydney. When I spied it among the gallery of others on Flickr, I confess I thought to myself “Uh-oh. Sprung”.

You see, I’m not paying attention. Not to what was happening around me, anyway. Not for that little bit of time. Although it might appear that I’m doing the regular delegate thing of writing down notes as to what was being said, what I’m actually doing is drafting a poem.

Why?

Good question.

It was for this competition. While, at that point, the submissions closure was still a good three weeks away, I knew what laid in between: Easter, the program launch of the EWF, I was to teach my first class at the Australian Writers’ Centre (on ‘Blogging for Beginners’) and a few other things besides. I knew if I didn’t do it then it wouldn’t get done at all. Even if it was bad, it was better than nothing. I wrote two poems in all; I knew one wasn’t special, but the other one came together quickly, and was a more authentic response to the artwork.

(This was an Ekphrasis competition. To quote the website “Ekphrasis is a genre of poetry that explores works of art and seeks to ‘gets inside’ its visual subject.” At the time, I was judging a similar competition for another council, so it was a case of blessed timing.)

Anyway, so maybe I wasn’t being the ideal audience member. Whatever ‘ideal’ means: these days, with everyone tweeting or blogging, I wonder if there is such a thing. But I was ‘present’. I liked writing with others around me, my kindred, who get that being productive and creative is soul-nurturing, leaving aside all other monetary and career-climbing aspects of blogging for a while.

I didn’t have time to revise either poem very much, but I sent them in anyway, and today I got a call informing me that the better one was just awarded a Highly Commended. It’s going to get published on a postcard, which I think is very cool.

(If you’re curious, I wrote it in response to ‘Silverton Cemetery’. Click the link above if you’d like a peep. I like cemeteries, even when I get recognised at my dad’s plot. That story has a grim humour about it I’ve always appreciated.)

I realise I didn’t win, or place. But a Highly Commended is an achievement, and if what it took to make it meant taking time for myself, then I’m okay with that. As I said in my opening talk during the Digital Parents Conference, I’m done saying sorry for what I’ve been able to accomplish. And if any of you out there ever make similar apologies, I want you to stop as well.

Just keep writing/blogging/painting/creating/photographing/whatever-your-pleasure. Please.

A Quick Piece of Writing News, And A Reminder That Being Busy Needn’t Prevent Creating is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

Dance

Shadowy, secretive. I see the shapes you make and patterns of light on the floor. I hear you breathing; heavier now you’ve been dancing for some time. I’m in the other room and tiptoe out to see if I can sneak a look. But I make a noise and am discovered. You turn around and plant your feet. You are dancing for yourself and no-one else is allowed to watch. A school disco is coming up, perhaps you are practicing for that. Although, I daresay, I’m the last person you’d tell.

A First Born’s Temper

Please be patient with your brother. Or at least try. Or pretend, for his sake.

Speed

Don’t race through your school work. Don’t race through the calendar. Don’t scrimp on the tooth brushing. Movies are still hard for you, I know, so I will forgive you for falling asleep during Star Trek. Sitcoms are faster, but poorer in quality (generally).

Hair

That rule we (no, I) made about plaiting your hair before bed so it’s not an unruly, tangled mess in the mornings? That was a good rule. I know because of your reluctant grunt of agreement.

Food

Before becoming a parent, I would’ve never properly understood the relief of having a child who was a ‘good eater’. Thank you, thank you for being ours.

Voice (actual)

I catch you singing under your breath. Your limited range is held in check this way, thereby keeping its pitch (which is more than I can say for mine). It’s a small treasure you keep quiet and is a surprise to anyone who might pass at the right moment, a stray note that lifts the room and then leaves it.

The Voice (television)

“I don’t understand why everyone makes such a fuss over Ricky Martin.”

Your Faithful Companion

The cat waits by the door every afternoon for you to arrive home from school, and probably will until the day she dies.

Love

Me – mine – for you, ever.

My little blur, and wonder.

Nine Things Now You Are Nine is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

It’s no secret that I love coffee, or that I am (in)famous among family members for being a classic Melburnian coffee snob. However, on that count, in my adopted home city, let it be known that I have zero problem with the label. And today I’m giving five lucky readers a chance to be fully caffeinated for the next five months, all thanks to República.

For those unfamiliar with República, they are 100% Fair Trade and organic coffee. Their products may be found online as well as Coles and Woolworths stores across the nation. It is currently Fair Trade fortnight, and I think it’s good timing to promote the kind of advocacy for change that is being done in places and markets that need that kind of support.

So if you would like to see what kind of ultra-special ‘moment-taking’ opportunity República have in this giveaway, let me walk you through it.

I have five packs, each valued at $350, on offer.

These contain a coffee hazelnut aromatic candle (not pictured), the Ultimate Chill 2012 CD, a copy of Penguin Classic The Great Gatsby (a so-hot-right-now text, and one of my favourite novels) and República coffee. Not only that, each winner will receive República coffee every month, for five months, delivered directly to their door.

The total prize value of this giveaway is $1,750. Wow – that’s a lot of coffee (and, therefore, extra productivity!)

Here are the giveaway rules:

1) You must be an Australian resident.
2) To enter you need to leave a comment saying why you would love to receive a República coffee prize pack. Winners will be selected for originality and skill.
3) This competition will close at 12pm Thursday 6 June 2013.
4) If contact cannot be made with a winner(s) I reserve the right to draw another. There will be five in total, so be in it to win it!

So enter, like the República Facebook page while you’re at it, and good luck!

República Coffee – Free Coffee For Five Months (Giveaway) is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

This is a Mother’s Day re-cap post, of sorts.

However, there’s something really cool on offer at the bottom, so it’s even better for you.

First, to yesterday. I deliberately didn’t Tweet/Facebook/Instagram any of my present pictures because – for once – I wanted to keep them to myself; even though they were of the same variety and theme that countless other mother’s across the globe will also recognise and receive. The one genuine surprise was a business card holder that Riley gave me and I think he could tell by the look on my fact that he’d picked a winner.

‘Do you like it?’ he asked.

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I’ve been wanting one for ages.’ Which is 100% true.

This said, who doesn’t like an extra present, after a special occasion is over (or at any old time, heck)?

Logitech contacted me recently with a selection of gadgets to look at ahead of Mother’s Day and I immediately honed in on the earphones. Because skinny earpiece ones hurt me, more often than not, and I can’t help but have noticed the upward trend again in people walking around with squishy, Princess Leia-like buns over their ears and have been wondering if they’re that good.

Well, they are.

Keira discovered this first, because my pair arrived before we went on our recent roadtrip. She took them, and I didn’t see them again for days.

Exhibit A.

I was really impressed (once I finally managed to get my hands on them) on their effectiveness. In a loud moving car, on half-volume, at one point I didn’t even notice Adam had been talking to me for ages, before he made it clear he had been. (Ah, marriage.)

Here’s another roadtrip shot.

If you would like to win a pair of these Logitech Ultimate Ears 4000 Headphones (RRP $149.95), including the travel pouch (very handy) then see below and good luck! You won’t be disappointed.

Giveaway rules

1) You must be an Australian resident.
2) To enter you can enter one of the 2 ways below, or both if you like (a maximum of 2 entries):

Leave a comment saying why you would like to win these headphones.[1 entry]
Tweet the link to this post (button at bottom of post) and come back to leave the Tweeted link here (so I can verify)[1 entry].

3) This competition will close at 12pm Monday 3 June 2013 (work will be too busy for me to monitor/close this before then).
4) If contact cannot be made with the winner I reserve the right to draw another.
5) The winner will be determined by a random number generator.

Thanks again, Logitech.

Logitech Ultimate Ears 4000 Headphones (Giveaway) is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind trip back to NSW to visit Adam’s family and attend his hometown’s 150th birthday celebrations. As is the way, I got sick with some demon tonsillitis thing on the way up and was either sleeping or sweating (or pouting, see photo) for a few days while I tried to shake the damn bug.

But enough of that! For I trudged on, attended a country horse meet for the first time since I lived in my own hometown …

… and ogled over class photos of my husband at his local primary school, while he stood in the corner with a ‘Please, let me die now’ look on his face. BUT LOOK AT THE CUTE.

Wearing blue on blue like a champion.

Anyway, we’re home now and there’s just a few things to let you know about:

First, I’ll be talking on Friday night at a Blurb event here in Melbourne about things EWF, blog-to-book, self-publishing and generally being creative related. If you’ve ever had a question about these things – and I know many do, because I get emails! – then consider coming along, grabbing a free drink, and have a chat!

You can RSVP via Eventbrite. Entry is free as well, cool cats.

Second, I’m also doing a Mother’s Day appearance at my local bookshop (Eltham Bookshop) this coming Saturday morning from 10am-11am. It’s a day dedicated to buying for mum ahead of the following weekend’s festivities. So come in and have yourself a glass of pink champagne, if drinking in the morning is your thing. I will! To be social, of course. *cough*

Crying in the Car: Reflections of Life and Motherhood will be available for sale, naturally.

I think that’s all for the moment.

A Couple Quick Announcements is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

Two or so years after letting my subscription to The New Yorker lapse – and enduring the paper campaign that ensued, pleading for my return – I recently re-subscribed: thanks, in part, to the prompting by Twitter pals Anna Spargo-Ryan and Mamabook, but mostly because I plain missed it. The picture above is the first copy I received and it only took – oh – about three minutes before I asked myself why I had ever, ever let it go in the first place.

It is truly wonderful publication – plus, whatever stock they use makes an issue perfectly foldable, easy to roll up and tuck into my handbag.

Killing the Black Dog was one of those random library pick-ups, although I’ve been long familiar with the title. Growing up, I think I had an interest in Les Murray as a writer long before I actually read any of his work: we lived in a similar-ish region, and so perhaps I claimed him in my mind as a semi-local. It is an enjoyable essay; more so than the accompanying poems, however essential they are to the overall effect of the book. A nice segue into The Best Australian Poems 2012, which I won a couple of weeks ago at the Kill Your Darlings trivia night (our table came second place and we democratically split up the pile of book prizes among ourselves).

I’ll say straight up that I enjoyed this edition more than the last two, maybe even three, year’s. One of the charges laid against such collections is that they try to be too appealing, too appeasing to the everyday reader, who only bothers to buy a poetry book once a year (and this is probably the one). It’s an odd argument, because I feel like shrugging my shoulders and saying, ‘Yeah, duh‘. The implication that its accessibility somehow taints the quality or ‘worth’ is baffling to me.  What I particularly like about this collection are the storytelling aspects of a great many poems: evocative and distilled, yet, even in only a few lines, they impart the sense of something ‘greater’, celebrating a snared tangibility of life or life events, maybe.

What are you reading at the moment?

What I’m Reading April 2013 is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

We are four out of twenty-three million*, called down to the sports oval by a dancing wind, the open sky and a slow-baked April sun. Degrees are just numbers though, as are population statistics, I thought, as we tossed the basketball to each other. Playing schoolyard games, diving for a catch – this is how easy life can be (for an hour). Then the skin starts to prickle from exposure and blood sugars start to dip and the relay lanes stamped into the ground are now less guides than lassos to confine the grass, keep things ordered; a reminder of the regulations of play. Then it was time to go home, surely to fight and love, and fight again. But, for this brief period, there was peace to be found in the arc of a throw before watching it land safely in safe hands.

*Australia’s population ticked past twenty-three million this week.

Four Out of Twenty-Three Million is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

Products from top right, clockwise: White Document Drawer With Inbox, White Martha Stewart Pen Cup, Blue Pocket Wall Organiser, Stack and Fit Stackable Inbox, White Magazine File, White Desktop Organiser, White Small Item holder With Lid

Hello, how is your Friday going? It just got a lot better.

I’m sure this giveaway will be of interest as we lead up to Mother’s Day. These pretty office products will be guaranteed to get the organisation-savvy folks salivating. And if you’re not one of those guys, they’re going to help you become one.

Take me, for example. I’m as scattered as confetti to the wind and I’m looking at these with envy because I can see that they could help me in my life. But no, all these, with a collected retail value of well over one hundred dollars, will be going to one lucky winner. To be delivered by Mother’s Day, they will then be yours to make that difficult decision: keep or give to someone else. (I know which option I’d do – but then again, I’m selfish.)

Thanks Martha Stewart gang!

Giveaway rules

1) You must be an Australian resident.
2) To enter you can enter one of the 2 ways below, or both if you like (a maximum of 2 entries):

• Leave a comment saying why you (or someone you’d give these to) needs some organisational help.[1 entry]
• Tweet the link to this post (button at bottom of post) and come back to leave the Tweeted link here (so I can verify)[1 entry].

3) This competition will close at 12pm Friday 10th May 2013.
4) If contact cannot be made with the winner I reserve the right to draw another.
5) The winner will be determined by a random number generator.

Who knows, your home office could be on the way to looking like this!

(Well … maybe?!)

(Adam would fall over in a dead faint if I ever kept our office space this clean.)

 Edit: this has now closed. Good luck!

Getting Organised With Martha Stewart (Giveaway) is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

At a wonderfully attended and entertaining launch last Wednesday night, the 2013 Emerging Writers’ Festival program was revealed to all (with immediate ticket sales, which is always nice). It’s been an intense period, getting it ready to go online and behind-the-scenes, but it’s worth it.

Last night, as I was tucking Keira into bed, she asked me how far away the festival was, and if she could come to anything? Her only experience in the past has been on short stints with me at Page Parlour, down at Federation Square – no mean feat when you’re young and get wriggly easy (or if you’re an adult too, for that matter) – and it’s nice to see her taking an interest.

So, with her request in mind, I thought I would put together a little ‘family friendly event’ guide for parents interested in coming along with their tribe.

There’s a few things I can recommend, and they fall on our second weekend of the festival. In a new, exciting partnership, it will be held among the various rooms and settings around Abbotsford Convent, itself an attractive visiting place for families, at any time. There’s plenty of room to wander, get food, and relax: lending itself nicely to the weekend theme of writing and well-being.

Wild, Wild Life: An Evening of Animal Stories – Saturday 1 June, 6.30pm

“Ready to go wild? Join us for an intimate night of storytelling with a non-human edge. Writers and illustrators explore their side, telling ferocious stories. We’ve matched these talented storytellers with a sound artist to provide a soundtrack of calls from the wild. Whales, birds, tigers, donkeys, dogs and more feature in this unique program.

Featuring OSLO DAVIS, REBECCA GIGGS, LK HOLT, LAURA JEAN MCKAY, MARC MARTIN, JOSEPHINE ROWE and KHAIRANI ‘OKKA’ BAROKKA. With a wild soundtrack by MICHAEL PRIOR.”

What I love about this – apart from the talent – is that children under the age of 12 can get in for free!

Tickets here.

The Slow Canoe Reading Winter’s Picnic –  Sunday 1  June, 1pm

“Slow Canoe Readings are a wonderful new reading event in Melbourne. Bring your rug for a special indoor picnic with a series of lunchtime stories hosted by the storytelling collective Slow Canoe Readings. The stories will be themed around food to grow your appetite. Hear some of the best new work by Australian emerging writers.

With singer-songwriter, AL PARKINSON, cartoonist MIKE BAYLISS, fiction writer ISABELL LI, non-fiction writer ELLENA SAVAGE and the winner of a special competition run by SLOW CANOE READINGS!”

This is free! And, also, how romantic and fun does a mass indoor picnic sound?

Within the Writers’ Retreat main programming of panels, topics up for discussion include nature writing, food writing, work-life balance, being active and many others. I’ll be appearing on the panel below.

FAMILY, PARENTHOOD AND WRITING, Saturday 1 June, 11 am – 12pm

“Words have long held the power to seduce, subvert and persuade so what don’t you want your family to read? Some of your own writing may touch on sensitive topics, too. Maybe you are writing a personal memoir with certain passages you don’t want your parents to read? How do writers balance their family life with creative work?

With KAREN ANDREWS, BRENDAN RYAN, MONICA DUX and VANESSA RUSSELL.”

Admission is free! (I KNOW) Read the full line up here.

If you’re planning on coming to any EWF event, let me know! I know a bunch of my friends came last year for the first time and loved it – so trust me, you’ll be glad you did! I’ll be at most things, I’ll probably see you there!

*Session blurbs quoted from the EWF events page(s).

Emerging Writers’ Festival 2013: Family-Friendly Event Suggestions is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!

‘To Do’

No, it should actually read ‘What I Want to Do When I Have the Chance to Do It, at an Unspecified Time in the Future, which Isn’t – In Fact – Important Enough for Me to Get Started on Right Now’.

So, I should really say ‘Wish List’?

Well, that doesn’t inspire a healthy state of optimism, does it? It’s the spirit-sibling to ‘I Wish’.

Fine, anything. Write anything, call it anything, so long as it means you’re getting words out of your brain. It’s positive action.

Look at me! So I am!

Okay, what am I going to call this list? ‘To Do’ after all?

Sure. ‘To Do’.

See that wasn’t so hard.

I suppose not.

And here’s a shitty flower for your efforts.

Wow. Thanks.

Put that on the list: ‘Learn to Draw Better’.

Excellent idea.

And that is how I began planning for the second half of 2013.

Beware the ‘To Do’ List is a post from: Miscellaneous Mum - Trying to find the objective correlative, everyday
New book Crying in the Car: Reflections on Life and Motherhood available on Kindle!