Run-in with T-Rex.

Took the kids to the Australian museum yesterday.

This is not a REAL T-Rex - I would not be smiling like that if it was

Also I am not the only HILARIOUS person in this marriage - PHEW

I made some new friends.

She wasn't very chatty, maybe she didn't like me? People confuse me sometimes

 And was only marginally freaked out by all the dead stuffed things around the place.

Miss 5: "Mummy are they dead?"

All these photos are courtesy of Miss 6.  How awesome is she??

Except this photo, OBVIOUSLY

Was an excellent day :)

On an entirely different note, Romance Australia has posted the first of its updates about the donations going to flood affected libraries in Queensland.  Link Here.  Its a wonderful story.

Did you vote for me yet??

I'm on the first page

(Let Them Eat) Cake Friday - Simnel Cake

Simnel cake - a traditional UK cake made around Easter/Mothering Sunday (their Mothering Sunday, not the Aussie one).

Simnel cake is also an anagram of...
Seamen Licks
Leaks Mince
A Neck Slime
Silk Menace, and
Manic Leeks
I know this because I have hurt my back, can barely move and am VERY BORED.

Its a fruit cake, with a marzipan lid - am not a fan of marzipan unless its homemade, then its loooovley.

Simnel Cake - with artistic marzipan decorations

 The decorations are supposed to represent 11 apostles and Jesus - Judas gets left off, because he does not deserve to be rolled out of a ball of marzipan, stuck under the grill briefly to brown and then eaten.

Jesus is the one in the middle, and these are happy apostles

 I was a bit dubious about this one, but its actually very nice - if a bit on the Very Solid side.

It took some effort to cut this slice

The kids only like sultanas, "If they are on their own MUMMY, not In CAKE. NOT IN CAAAAAKE."

sigh.

Best Aussie Blogs Nominee :)

Vote for me, and your other favourite blogs, HERE.

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Thanks all :)

Oh and I got my twitter button working, FINALLY (ahem, blush, blush)

Home brewing and children; its never too early to start

Being school holiday I presently have the screamies underfoot every minute of every day - such unfettered joy (no really).  They love to help in the kitchen, and now that they're 5 and 6 they are becoming useful, rather than making an ungodly mess and distracting me so I forget crucial ingredients.  Miss 6, who is a steady and calm child, is brilliant at weighing and measuring and loves to help with the bread and making yoghurt.

Miss 5 is better in the stirring and pouring departments, so when I finished off the ginger beer earlier in the week she was an excellent help.

Ginger Beer
After a week of being fed and nurtured the ginger beer plant is ready to go and the bottles are sterilised.  Information about the plant recipe here.

We strained the mixture (well, I poured it off the settled sediment), add the juice of 2 lemons and reserve the sediment.  Its now ready to use. 

The sediment should be divided in two (you can give half to a friend, or to the chooks).  Add half a pint of water, 2tsp sugar and 2tsp ginger and proceed with the feeding and nurturing as before (details in this post).

For the next stage you need...
2oz sugar
Cold boiled water
Ginger beer plant liquid

Add the sugar to the liquid and make up to 1 gallon (4 litres) with water, stirring until the sugar has dissolved completely.
Pour into strong, dark coloured beer bottles.

Pouring

So much pouring

And then cap the bottles - the recipe recommends using pop-off plastic caps, but as I don't have any, we are capping the bottles with your usual gold metal lid, but keeping them in the shed, so if they explode no harm will be done.

Her completely favouritest part

And that's it.  Leave the ginger beer for 7 - 10 days and then have a taste test.  We've got stuff that is over a year old and is wonderfully drinkable.

:)

This is a Down To Earth on my mind post: DOWN TO EARTH: On my mind ...

Autumn Planting: Bed 3 Onions/Alliums

Wretched chicken got out yesterday and wreaked havoc amongst my seedlings. Not. Happy. Jan.

Well, at least it wasn't all four of them. sigh.

Bed 3 is my alliums bed; 2sqm onions, 1sqm spring onions, few random shallots, 1sqm garlic and 1sqm leeks.

Lovely garlic just coming up; yes raised beds are falling to bits

 I got the garlic I planted here from the organic produce stall at Hornsby farmers market.  Not sure what sort it is, but I wasn't too fussed.  Given last years garlic disaster I didn't want to spend a heap on garlic from Diggers or somewhere.

Some red spring onions are in there somewhere - also some basil, eggplant and capsicum from this being the tomato bed last year.  They'll come out in the next few weeks.

1sqm spring onions + other stuff

 Here is my poor poor onion patch - big hole in the middle courtesy of damn chook.  Have a few onion seedlings hanging about, so shall replant, sigh.

Chook damaged onion patch - note lame chook defences

So really the alliums bed is pretty much done - just watering and TLC from now own (and laser heat seeking missile chook defence system).  I've got to put in a square meter of leek seeds, which are going in a bit late for around here, but leeks usually do okay regardless. 

:)

Tuesday Writing: Submitting a Manuscript

Despite spending the last entire week avoiding actually writing anything at all - hey, its school holidays, I have varmints underfoot - my primary form of occupation is being a writer.  What you see on the blog is often my daily 'pages', where I get to do some fun, easy writing, with no thought for character or plot or following a story arc.  I love my blog, have I mentioned that lately??

In the last few years I have purposefully backed away from publishing.  I've still been writing, but the demands of publishing novels and having small children were too much.  I just didn't have the mental energy to do a good job at either.  However, now that the kids are at school,  I've been focussing on getting my stories out there once more.

Why is publishing so demanding?  Because these days to be an author also means you have to be a dedicated self-marketer.  And that can take as much time and energy as writing, if not more.  There is a great post here about the changes for authors in the new digital publishing age.

Lately I've had a few un-published authors ask me about submitting manuscripts and 'how to get published.'  This is what I've been telling them...

First up, I've got really good news.  With the explosion in self-publishing and websites like http://www.smashwords.com, it means that you have options.  If your book is too off-centre for nervous traditional publishers, then you always have the option of self-publishing it and finding your audience yourself.  So, your manuscript is never going to end up forgotten on a hard drive somewhere -  you can upload it to e-book sellers like Amazon under your own steam and charge a price that you decide (even give it away free if you want).

Both my published books are with Samhain Publishing, which publishes in both digital and print. I would happily be published with them again.  It is well worth reading their submission guidelines http://www.samhainpublishing.com Samhain is one of the foremost e-pubs out there and a great place to start.

Another good digital publisher is http://www.carinapress.com Carina is the e-pubbing arm of Harlequin and is interested in a wide variety of genres (romance, horror, fantasy, sci fi etc), Carina are good, but they are e-pub only, and so you wont see your book in print - however, with the huge explosion in the e-reader market, its a viable option.

But I want to see my book in print?  Firstly, with POD (print on demand) technology moving as fast as it is, then its highly likely that eventually a reader will be able to order any electronic book in print version - so it might be worth e-pubbing and then waiting to see what develops.  Second, e-books are forever, print books are in shops for a few months, or up to a year.  After four years I am still getting monthly royalties from the e-versions of my two books - the print royalties dried up yonks ago.

There are a lot of other e-pubs out there on the internet, but be careful and do your research, Samhain and Carina are as good as they get, but a few have turned out to be breathtakingly dodgy.  As always, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

If you are looking at submitting to a New York publisher, ie the huge, household name type publishers, you will probably need an agent, though now and then they do open for unsolicited submissions.  Information about their submission processes are on their websites, and often you can email your query letter rather than posting - in fact it is becoming more and more rare for publishers to want paper submissions.

A good place to look for agents in the US is www.agentquery.com, just google 'literary agents' to find those in the UK.  There are a handful of Aussie agents, but the Aussie publishing industry is wary of genre fiction at the moment, especially from the unpubbed.   A good place to ask questions of an Aussie agent is http://www.callmyagent.blogspot.com. 

On a more personal note, remember that the publishing industry is tough and rejection is doled out on a daily basis.  You just have to keep submitting, or take a break if it all gets too much and jump back in when you are ready.  Rejection is not personal, your book just wasn't right for them.  I know its not easy, and I know that it takes huge strength and tenacity to keep going, but it will be worth it.  The sting will pass, and the disappointment of it is not worth stopping altogether.

Good luck, ask if you have questions, am happy to answer anything I can.  If you need to rage and vent, email me; caitlyn.nicholas@gmail.com - don't vent on a blog (but more on that next Tuesday, when I'll write about the realities of having a public profile, even when you are unpubbed)

Happy writing :)

Bubble, bubble...

Parsley Wine

Part One here.

The parsley wine is presently bubbling away in its demi-john.  The whole house smells faintly of alcohol and herbs - which is rather nice - and thus far all seems to be going according to plan.

Parsley wine fermenting in demi-john - day 2

 I did taste it, after we'd stirred in 2.5lbs of sugar. I reckoned it'd be pretty hard for that to taste awful - and I was right - sweet and herby with an underlying dry white wineyness about it.

So, the recipe...

Parsley liquid strained over sultanas

Ingredients:
1lb parsley leaves (no stalks)
2 lemons
1lb sultanas (hot washed and chopped)
1 gallon water
Cold boiled water for topping up
Wine yeast and nutrient (I used champagne yeast)
2.5lb sugar
Campden tablet

Sprinkle yeast granules and nutrient into cup of boiled tepid water, cover and leave for an hour.
Strip parsley leaves from stalks; take care not to include any stalks.
Wash well, chop and put into large pan.
Thinly peel lemons, avoiding white pith and place rind in pan with parsley.
Add gallon of water and heat until boiling, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Place sultanas in fermentation bin and strain over parsley liquid.
Discard parsley and lemon rind.
Top up to 1 gallon with cold, boiled water and leave to cool.
When cool add lemon juice and activated yeast/nutrient.
Cover loosely and leave for 5 days to ferment.

Parsley liquid after 5 days fermenting (sultanas floating on top)

 Strain mixture, pressing sultanas to extract as much liquid as possible, then discard
Add sugar to liquid, stirring until dissolved then pour into demi-john and fit airlock.

Fermenting in demi-john

Leave to ferment at temperature about 18C/64F.
When fermentation finished, siphon clearing wine into clean demi-john, adding 1 crushed campden tablet.
Bung tight and store for 3 months in cool place.
Siphon into sterilised bottles, seal tightly and store.

******

:)

Autumn Colour in the Garden: or Things that are actually alive...

Gave the strawberries in the front garden a drink of seaweed tea about three weeks ago, and now we have a few very late season fruit.  The flavour isn't anything like the pre-christmas lot, but its strawberry-ish enough to be lovely.

Strawberry

I love these Fairy Tale eggplants.  I thought this one had died in our Disaster Of Late January - when everything got cooked by a week of 40+ temps, westerly gales and UV levels that were off the scale - but its bounced back.

Fairy Tale Eggplant

Shall be including this one in dinner :)

Capsicum; Zodiac Capricorn

And that's a sweetcorn seedling coming up next to it on the left - not grass, I think...

:)

(Let Them Eat) Cake Friday - brought to you by hubs

This Friday's Cake Friday offering is brought to you by my husband.  His first sponge, awwww.

No teasing

It tasted delicious, with lime curd filling - its called curd because its supposed to be full of curdled egg bits, right? right?

It did taste delicious

See, I even have proof that he cooked it...

Why yes, he is wearing scarlet underpants

Yesterday was the first day of the school holidays.  SIGH.  Very tired, very shouty children. By about 9am I had resigned from parenthood, only to be informed THERE IS NO WAY OUT and WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.

HA.  Mowing the lawn for two hours with headphones and ear protectors on, is not being in anything together. Just sayin.

We were out of bread, so I ended up having one of those wholesomely domestic days where you cook everything from scratch, and then collapse in a heap clutching a hot water bottle to your lower back and whining a lot about your sciatica.

Morning tea was pikelets.

Ready to flip

Taa daa

Going

Going

Still going

Gone

Then lunch was bread rolls (or boulders - we could've used those babies for ships ballast)

The Devil's Marbles

And pumpkin soup - rather successful.

Orangy goodness

Afternoon tea was the pancake cake (see above)
Then scrambled eggs for dinner, with yoghurt (store bought - yes I AM ONLY HUMAN) for dessert.

Knackered. Gah.  Maccers tomorrow, or at least a chinese take-away - just to redress the balance. :)

Making Soap

We're nearly out of soap, so I've been having a soap binge in the kitchen.

First batch: Beeswax Soap

14oz water
5oz lye
6oz beeswax
4oz coconut oil
10oz rice bran oil
20oz olive oil

Worked very nicely.







Second Batch: A mishmash batch
This batch has not worked so well.  I'm not completely surprised as I was using up a lot of oils that I had hanging around.  I did use a soap calculator to make sure my lye proportions were right, so I'm confident that was not the problem, but as you can see from the few areas of oil on the top and the slightly white crust on the bottom, the soap has not saponified properly.

Still, all is not lost!
I shall grate this up, melt it down, add some goats milk, avocado oil and some dill essential oil (or similar, not sure what I've got in my collection), and make a really lovely moisturising soap.

:)

This is an On My Mind post, from Rhonda's blog over at Down To Earth.

Autumn Planting: Bed 1

In the vege plot I work on a six bed rotation system; Bed 1 is root vegetables/leafy greens.  A couple of weeks ago I put in some carrot, beetroot, turnips and swede seeds.

Thus far the weather has been kind and the chickens and the dog have, by some miracle, not destroyed the lot of them.

Here we have, from left to right; turnips (purple top white globe), swede (best of all), beetroot (monorubra) and carrots (purple haze).

Next door we have carrot (topweight), beetroot (crimson globe), swede (best of all) and Japanese turnip (Hakurei) - and, erm, some violets down there on the bottom right, must weed more :)

Up the back of the bed there are some silverbeet seedlings and broccoli seedlings (below), also weeds - is it wrong to crop photos so that there are no weeds??

:)

Something is Brewing

I come from a long line of people who are passionate about brewing extremely dodgy beverages.  My English Grandmother's elderflower wine is still spoken of in hushed tones, and has been held responsible for no less than three neighbours driving their cars into hedges (this was before drink driving or even seatbelts had been invented).

So, as is my habit when autumn is upon us, I have been upholding a fine family tradition and getting the moonshine going.

Ginger Beer
Home brewed ginger beer is delightful - am supplier for us and mumndad
Making a ginger beer plant is the first step in the process. Once the plant is going the liquid is used to brew the beer, which is very mildly alcoholic.

Ingredients:
1/2 oz dried yeast
1/2 pint water
sugar
ground ginger

Put the yeast in a jar, add the water, two teaspoons sugar and two teaspoons ground ginger and give a good mix.
Cover the jar.
Each day for 7 days add 1 teaspoon sugar and 1 teaspoon ground ginger.

Ginger beer plant: and yes, my kitchen windows are that dirty

This ginger beer plant is now three days old.  Will be turning it into ginger beer in a few days :) so check back for an update on Monday (give or take).

Parsley Wine
As home brewing experiments go, I suspect this may well be my most horrific so far.  Nevertheless, I found the recipe in a little traditional English brewing book, and in the interest of using produce from the garden, I am diving in, so to speak.
Apparently it will taste wonderful with fish. Hmm.
So I took 450g parsley from the garden and boiled it, which made the house smell like wet wool socks and parsley sauce, yummy, kindof.
I added some champagne yeast and some sultanas, and this was the spectacular result...

Parsley wine in the fermenting bin

 No, I could not bring myself to taste it, in case you were wondering.

Twenty four hours later, its fizzing and bubbling, the sultanas have risen to the top, and the house smells herby and fermenty.   Am feeling faintly more confident about it than I was yesterday. Faintly.

Parsley wine: Day 2 - Sultanas floating on the top

Will be sticking it in a demi-john and leaving it to do some serious fermenting in a few days, so stay tuned for an update, and I'll put the recipe up then as well.

:)

Growing old Sucks & A Balm For My Sole

Growing Old Sucks

Growing old sucks.  I mean it really sucks.  Grandad was doing well, really well, he came out of hospital a few weeks ago and has been at a rehab hospital.  He was doing so well that tomorrow he was supposed to go his little unit with the OT person and talk over the realities of living on his own again, and if he could cope.  Then, last Wednesday, he had a mild heart-attack, which has of course, set him back, big time.

I was visiting today, I took him a flat white and some anzac biscuits, much appreciated, thankyouverymuchindeed!!  He was asleep in the sunshine when I got there, so I just sat and kept him company and knitted. 

I couldn't help but overhear the conversation in the bed next to his - everyone is deaf so all intimate details are bellowed, and therefore there aren't many secrets!!  The elderly gentleman was being told that he could not go home, and the next stop would be a high-level-of-care nursing home - I don't know his full story, but he is permanently attached to an oxygen mask. 
He was desperate not to go, "But I'll die there," he kept saying.

The doctor was calm, but firm, and was very positive about the move.  Clearly he'd had this conversation a thousand times before.  The gentleman's daughter was there, and was gently backing up the doctor.  Her phone rang and she stepped outside the ward to talk, and the gentleman turned to the doctor when she was out of earshot...
"Everyone is so kind," he said. "But you don't realise my family is trying to kill me."
"Your family is trying to help you, they are trying to do what's best," said the doctor.
"They just want to get rid of me, they just want me to die."

My heart broke for the thousandth time, just then.  For the gentleman, so helpless and 'fighting against the dying of the light.' For his daughter - who looked as exhausted and stressed as my mother is at the moment - and who is so obviously trying to get her father the best care she can. And just for growing old.


A Balm for my Sole: Choc Mint Balm
When I've got a lot of stuff going on, I tend to take refuge in the kitchen.  So expect a lot of making-stuff posts in the near future (the great parsley wine experiment is imminent, I kid you not!!)

Today I rolled up my sleeves and made some of Jackie French's Choc Mint balm.  Mostly its for hubs cracked heels (or The Horror - no photo, would not do that to the internet), but it can also be used on skungy elbows and even cracked lips (though I personally wouldn't, all that peppermint essential oil is a bit too minty).

Ingredients are:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon beeswax
2 teaspoons chocolate
1/2 teaspoon mint essential oil

Warm the olive oil and the beeswax until melted
Stir in the chocolate.
Skim off any brown scum.
Add mint oil.

Its messy to use, but smells divine, and the olive oil doesn't do cracked heels any harm (not particularly dramatic results either, mind).

:)

Birthday party gifts: cheap not nasty

Now that they are both at school, the screamies get invited to a lot of birthday parties - in a move that is designed to torture poor parents, it is mandatory to invite all kids to your party at their school - we've figured we go to around 20 a year for each child, ie 40 parties.

Thus it is rare to have a weekend that is partyless, and if we do have a free weekend I get quite folorn as I have to find some way to amuse myself other than stealing lollies from the lolly bags.  Oh the tedium. Sigh.

One of the more daunting aspects of all this, is the birthday gift.  Usually gift selection has involved me rushing off to the mall, spending $30 on a gift and another $10 at least on wrapping paper and cards.  (So 40 parties times $40 is $1600, gulp).  The present is wrapped and the child in question signs the card and it is delivered to the party, and that is the end of it.

Its all seemed a bit expensive and pointless to me.  I think its important to get the birthday girl a gift that she will enjoy (so not a load of bunkum from the $2 Shop), and I think the kids should be involved in the selection and preparation of the gift, so that they learn about giving and being excited about giving.


So this time around I headed off to the local op-shop, and we came up with this gift for the extortionate sum of $6.  A bunny basket, teddy bear figurine, two sparkly necklaces and a sparkly bracelet, perfect for a six year old.  

Miss 6 was so excited she couldn't keep her hands off the present and I had to hide it away.

:)

Autumn Planting: Beds 4 & 5, (also ranting about insurance companies)

Well I think I've been ranty enough in the last couple of posts, and though I was tempted to air my opinion on the insurance company Youi, who helped themselves to $459 from our bank account WITHOUT our permission, and after a long conversation grudgingly agreed to pay back some of it on the condition that they keep $150 and insure us for third-party insurance.

We are a bit bamboozled as to how this occurred as we paid them via cash transfer when we took out insurance last year.  It seems they kept our details and decided to use them to withdraw cash from our account when we did not inform them that we were not renewing our insurance.

Of course we didn't inform them, we are switching to someone else.  Why would we inform them?? When we switched away from NRMA we simply did not renew, no further action on our part.  They left our bank account alone, but did call to find out why we didn't renew.

Youi, you suck and you will never have business from us again, AND I am informing the ACCC and Choice, AND I am taking steps to have you legally prevented from accessing our account EVER AGAIN.

Erm. Ahem.

I did it again. Sorry about that - I just get so sick of these huge corporations that think they can just help themselves.  Anyway...

Autumn Planting

In the vege plot I work on a six bed rotation system which is basically as follows:

Bed 1: Root vegetables
Bed 2: Legumes
Bed 3: Onions
Bed 4: Tomatoes
Bed 5: Sweetcorn/Pumpkins
Bed 6: Potatoes

This time of year is when I'm starting to plant up the new beds, and prepare them for various vegies that will go in in July and August.  In the next few posts I am going to go over each bed, and today it is Bed 4 the tomato bed, and Bed 5 the sweetcorn pumpkin bed.

Bed 4.  The Tomato Bed

• Actually its two beds.  
• These beds have just finished growing sweetcorn and pumpkin, and as you can see the left is still home to The Pumpkin of Hope (miraculously still pumpkining, unlike the Eggplant of Indescribable Joy which rotted and died, SIGH).  The pumpkin plant itself is suffering badly from powdery mildew, and I've been hacking it back which is why its looking so motheaten.  But at the moment I'm leaving the bed on the left alone until the pumpkin is ready.

• The other bed is presently home to 10 baby strawberry guavas, there at the front.  They will be moved soon to make a hedge at the front of the house, but were so tiny when we got them that I've been nurturing them, so that they have a small hope of survival out the front.
• This has not left me with much room to get ready for the tomatoes, but I have dug over this bed  and planted green manure (an old Diggers clever clover kit) in the non-guavaed bit.

• Once the pumpkin and the guavas are gone I'll put in more green manure, which I'll dig in a few weeks before the tomatoes go in.

Bed 5: The Sweetcorn and Pumpkin Bed

• Now this bed has big problems.  Due to my own ignorance and not using a crop rotation plan I ended up with root knot nematodes.
• Below are two celeriac's that I dug up today, both from that bed, the left one is not affected by nematodes the one on the right is - interestingly it seems the problem is worse in one area of the bed than others, go figure!

• This bed should have been growing potatoes previously, but with the nematodes I knew there wasn't much point.  So I grew potatoes elsewhere this year, and just grew a few odds and ends in there, quick growing things like zucchini.
• You can't get rid of nematodes, but I do grow a crop of mustard and dig it in each year and that seems to help.
• So right now, this bed is dug over and I've put in some green manure with extra mustard added to the seed mix.  
• The few scraps of green are some self-seeded basil and chillis I found - normally I'd plant them elsewhere, but with the nematodes, what grows in this bed, stays in this bed, or goes in the council green bin.

Exsqueeze Me...

So sorry for all and any inconveniences to anyone who hasn't been able to get to the blog via http//www.caitlynnicholas.com.  Have been moving ISPs from dotster to hover (I have no idea what that means, hubs is the IT Consultant and so I leave these matters in his hands).

This almighty decision (which has much to do with dotser charging an annual fee to hide our name, address and phone number on whois.com) has necessitated a great deal of Being Cut Off, Not Found On Servers, and my becoming a victim of Registry Maintenance.  Yes, been losing sleep over that one.

However, all is now complete (apparently) and my slow descent into lunacy/weird gardening lady will once more be broadcast on the internet.

Huzza.

Have spent entire day in car today and have nothing else of interest to say except that the traffic on Penny Hills Road SUX.  Bazza (O'Farrell - new NSW Overlord) we NEED a solution to join the M2 to the F3 quick smart and don't you go whining about deficits to me.

Sorry, did I say that was going to be of interest? I apologise.

And for outlanders, the M2 is a major highway with trucks n stuff (and a main route from the south).  It is attached to Pennant Hills road (which is a horrific suburban artery road - not designed for 600 BDoubles an hour).  Which, in turn, is the only route to the F3 - a major highway which, naturally, is the only route north to the rest of the whole of Australia.  At the moment its costing about one life a month - and today hubs and I were nearly involuntarily contributed to that number.

sigh.

Indeed I am the Glam Queen also a small rant including poems

So right now I'm in Hornsby Westfield, in the food hall, hooked up to Maccers free Wifi. Next to me sits a half-eaten egg and bacon McMuffin and a cardboard cup of tea. I have made friends with the one-armed light cleaning man, after a brief skirmish regarding the use of the one powerpoint in the place - and we have discussed his unusually smart 13yo daughter's gift for all things computery.

Yes, and there I was thinking a writing life was all glamorous dark smokey cafes, surly baristas and teetering on the brink of dire poverty :) !! 

Anyhoo, my dear friend Jill sent this poem to me this morning, and I thought I'd post it here, because its awesome...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE …
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .…
something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE…
a youth she’s content to leave behind….

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .…
a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age….

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ….
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE…
one friend who always makes her laugh… and one who lets her cry…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .…
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored…

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .…
a feeling of control over her destiny.

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to fall in love without losing herself.

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without; ruining the friendship…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
when to try harder… and WHEN TO WALK AWAY…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that she can’t change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
that her childhood may not have been perfect…but its over…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW..
whom she can trust,
whom she can’t,
and why she shouldn’t take it personally…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
where to go…
be it to her best friend’s kitchen table…
or a charming inn in the woods…
when her soul needs soothing…

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…
what she can and can’t accomplish in a day…
a month…and a year…

I'll just go all arts-studenty on you for a moment and note that this poem is accredited to Maya Angelou, but, it is in fact an adaption of a list written by Pamela Redmond Satran for a magazine (the poem is much better than the list btw)

I was at the doctor's office yesterday, and made the unfortunate choice of picking up a copy of Cosmo to read.  That magazine is EVIL, just breathtakingly awful.  I haven't read it for years and years and I'd forgotten.  The values and mores it was bleating on about were cringe-making;  over and over again the message it sent was that a woman wasn't quite good enough if she didn't have the right shoes, make up, clothes, boyfriend... I mean WTF??

It reminded me of the line of another much loved poem of mine "Everyone is Free (to Wear Suncreen)" by Mary Smich

"Do not read beauty magazines... they will only make you feel ugly."

 ....

 Everyone is Free (to Wear Suncreen) by Mary Smich
Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. 
I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.


:)

Just be thankful he's not a Gynaecologist as well...

Just be thankful he's not a Gynaecologist as well...