Post Christmas City

Half way down Queen Street Millie started to cry, it took awhile to coax it out of her, but eventually she shared that she  was crying for Christmas being over. It is an experience tinged with sadness visiting the city in the New Year lull and  I felt  guilty for not having made the effort to get them in there before the big day. When all the decorations would have carried an expectation of the excitement yet to come, instead today they were a slightly  forlorn reminder of what has been. I can remember that childhood post Christmas crash feeling  acutely especially when I am witness to  my own children experiencing it .  Nothing to do with ingratitude, entitlement or being indulged, instead just a natural human reaction to something so hyped having come and gone. Today I simply hugged her and told her "Christmas will come again sooner than you think, but in the meantime you have another whole year in front of you, filled with  good things". I am not entirely sure she believed me. 

We made a pilgrimage of sorts to Al's Deli,  it certainly felt like a pilgrimage walking up to the top of Queen Street. But worth it to reach this slice of authentic Canadiana in the middle of Auckland city, iso authentic in fact ,  pointed out Jack, that they had signs in both French and Canadian ( a.k.a English). The soundtrack consisted of Alanis and the Bare Naked Ladies and we felt weirdly juxtaposed but were soon righted by poutine and Moose Ears. Jack, connoisseur of Buffalo wings was delighted to have found the first plate the filled his wing expectation since our trip last year. 

Slightly melancholy but with full bellies  we headed home on the train. 

Work in Progress

Lately the idea of the Glorification of Busy seems to be everywhere  my social media news feeds. I find this idea irritating and I would hazard a guess that it was not conceptualised by a women. Not that I am suggesting that women have cornered the market on busyness, but as PC as it may not be it is my experience that it is women who have all the balls juggling in the air. It is women who are making the school lunches before they leave for work, women who are trying to figure out if they can squeeze in that work meeting on their non-work day when they planned to wash the sheets, do the groceries, finally tackle those overflowing kitchen cupboards.


In my world it is the layering of work responsibility on top of motherhood that makes me too busy, but in someone else's life  the pressures are different, but just as acute. I find the thesis of the glorification of busy,   that I might somehow be manufacturing this chaos because it increases my feelings of self importance to be hilarious. Believe me, given the choice I would much rather park my backside on the couch and knit, or go for a walk,  than drag three children around the supermarket or some other unpleasant and unavoidable task.

However,  lately I have been reflecting on what is truly essential. I have so many moments where I can physically feel my blood pressure rising, my chest tightening, confusion setting into my mind as the cortisol surges, it happens so frequently that it has  becomes my body's disproportionate response to even a slight stressor.


Feeling busy, having a long list of things to do, makes you unable to see the wood for trees, things begin to assume an importance they do not really deserve. But when you are in the middle of it, it is hard to see this truth. Finding the space to take a breath, make a plan and reduce the load does not occur to you in the middle of a stress loop.

Yesterday, I yelled at my children when they made more mess than I could handle.  The guilt when things like this happen is strong, we are bombarded with messages of how we should be carefree parents in the moment with our children, not distracted by the  lego left on the floor, the  clothes in the corner, the unmade bed. Yet at the same time we must keep a perfect house,  put a nutritious meal on the table every night and make sure we look good while we are doing it.


I am forming my own thesis, it is okay to be the mother who is irritated by mess, who gets overwhelmed sometimes and yells too much, the one who has too many things to do, I love my children and I am just trying to do my best. And I am trying to find my way through the stress, remembering  that  I may not be able to chose how busy I am, or how many of those things need to get done, but I can chose how I respond to it.


Today I decided to ignore what needs to be done, and instead do something I wanted to do.  It  is not really a practical long term solution but something I probably need to do more often.


I found this old dolls high chair at an op shop for $5, I had been looking for one for ages. I repainted it using paint my brother gave me for my birthday from Molly Voodoo Vintage Paint which is kind of a New Zealand Version of the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint, I found it really easy to use. I covered the tray with some off cut oil cloth we have had for years, Miss M is very happy with this new arrangement. 

Thrifty Homestyle

I don't mean to sound like a shopping snob but I had to go to insert big chain store  recently to buy some school items and I almost broke out in a plastic related rash. It had been so long since I stepped foot in a big box store I had forgotten what it smelt like. All that PVC, packaging and just general newness melding into a certain eau de plastique.  The wide open space and the concrete floor certainly has an atmosphere all of it's own.

I found this gorgeous lady at the Sallies a few weeks ago for $4, she is brightening up my shelves

She sits above these colour glaze cups and saucers that I got last year for under $5 and that gorgeous tea cosy, 50 cents!! 

Don't get me wrong, mass production has it's place in our lives, it is inevitable and not entirely avoidable in this modern life. But in the not too distant past I used to visit places like this all too often and our home was filled with items that we did not need and many of which never really delivered on the promise of the purchase.

This little basket is the handiest thing ever, positioned by the front door and the coat rack it is our key centre and I can count the number of times I have misplaced my keys on one hand since it was installed. A daily occurrence previously. 

Not thrifted just made by John and lovely

We have spent the past few years purging our home of possessions, our children now have very few toys,  my kitchen stripped of unnecessary parephnailia, the wardrobes.... well they remain a work in progress.

These plate holders are genius, they keep my cupboards in tip top shape all for $1

My table cloth collections is growing too, I love the idea that the time an unknown person once spent creating something gets a second chance

I am not however an entirely reformed shopaholic, I still feel faint at the thought of a trip to Ikea and some might say I have swapped my big box shopping for the Op shop, maybe that is true. But I like to think that the items I bring home these days are more carefully considered, they are definitely less generic and far from mass produced.  Much to my poor husband's minimalist ongoing distress, I still just really like things, pretty things, sometimes useful things but not always. The other day I did a little reckie around the house and noticed how many thrifted things I am using every day, or looking at every day. That makes me happy.

Lunch Box Love

Lunchbox dread, it is a familiar feeling that comes over me whenever I start to contemplate the return to school. Upon first consideration,   it would seem that the anxious reactions lunch boxes  provoke in me are somewhat disproportionate. However,  lunchbox pressure is acute when you factor in

a) one child who eats barely anything

b) the pressure to feel as though you are providing your children with adequate fuel for the brainpower and energy needed to survive the school day 

 c) the never-ending cry of "but everyone else has ….  insert brightly colored packaged highly processed food  everyday, we are the ONLY ones who don't have that" .

Many a morning I have stood at the kitchen bench struck down by lunch box inertia unable to find anything worthy of putting inside the dreaded box. At the end of last year I decided we needed to mix things up a bit and try some new things. I ordered some supplies from here  You might be able to find similar products locally but I couldn't,  I am sure  it is just a matter of time though.

One of the things  I can put into the lunch boxes with a guaranteed no return was a fruit pouch. But these are really expensive, coming out at around $1 a pouch. Buying reusable pouches has cut the cost drastically and has the added benefit of no preservatives being added to the fruit and using what is abundant and free/cheap. So far we have used a combination of pears and plums from our trees and seasonal berries. 

These have been a BIG hit and have come home every day empty, success.

The other purchase was  these reusable silicone tube, at the end of last year I had gotten into the habit of buying yogurt tubes from the Collective which are delish, but again expensive. With these tubes I fill them with homemade yogurt ( easiyo) and some fruit puree, whizz them in the blender and freeze. The success of these has been unprecedented in my kitchen, they are requested both in the lunch box where they unfreezish by break time to a thickish smoothie texture but are probably most enjoyed after school as a solid frozen treat.

Our most favorite combination so far has been banana yogurt with pear, blueberry and vanilla puree. 

Yes all of this is quite a bit of faffing about, when I was up to my elbows in fruit puree in a hot February kitchen last week I did think to myself remind me exactly why I am doing this again. 

But, good food is important to us in our family, as is being cost effective. We were already making our own yogurt, I think the rest of the preparation will become more of a habit and feel slightly less onerous. And  early morning standing in the kitchen when lunchbox fatigue has threatened to overcome me, only to suddenly remember I have these lovelies lurking in my fridge and freezer it has felt like the effort was VERY worth it. Long may it last. 

Minecraft, Motherhood and Me

Minecraft in progress

Today is the last day of the summer break, January, you have been the best of times and the worst of times. We have done a lot of exciting and wonderful things in these holidays, they are memorable for our youngest child reaching a stage in her development where she is more able to keep up with her big brothers, she can ride a bike, manage a hike, the pram has been relegated to the back of the garage and a new world of possible outings has been opened up to us as a family. There has also been an abundance of simply being at home, our family which is often split apart by shift work and everyday obligations  has had the rare opportunity to spend extended periods of time together. Lets just say there was a fair bit of storming to get to the norming, and we have all learnt more about each other ,  and coexistence in the process.

This break  will also be memorable for the ongoing battle we have had regarding our children and technology.  The boy's poison of choice is of course the game du jour Mine craft. I think many of us parents like to fool ourselves when it comes to Mine craft, I hear myself repeating phrases  like, it's not like other games, there IS skill involved, they are building things, it's practically town planning.


It is all  very seductive, when it is allowing that extra half an hour of uninterrupted time to get something done you have been putting off for weeks, or just to sit down and take a  much needed breather. It is SO to  easy succumb to the lies we tell ourselves about gaming. But truthfully, I  know that is  all a crock.  Mine craft is a game that is as insidious and time wasting as any other, and quite possibly detrimental to young children's neurological development.

Steady on I hear you say, that's a big call, but I stand by my assertions. We started these holidays without any real structure to their gaming, bad move. Every morning would begin with the  familiar question, can we play mine craft today? when? when? now? is it time yet?. After some carnage early on in the break we implemented some rules, only after 11am, only for 45 minutes total technology time a day, and only if you are in the green zone of your traffic light behavior chart. This has been an effective strategy in cutting out the whinging but  not the overflow from the gaming.

When I watch my boys play I can literally see their neurological circuitry fizzing in front of my very eyes. Their body language changes, they become fidgety, as does their mental state, they are SO pressured and impulsive, then they begin to bicker, and when you tell them it is almost time for the game to end, the agitation ramps up  by about ten thousand notches. I used to think this was only happening because they played on i-devices, and I still believe it is likely that these effects are amplified by holding a highly stimulating device right up close to your face, and by association,  brain.

However we were really just  telling ourselves more lies when we allowed them to get an X box for their birthdays. They will play cooperatively,  we said.  It will be more interactive, there will be less fighting and it will not be so stimulating. None of the above is true. Yep, that's right, none of it.

There is of course the possibility that not all children respond in this way, and I did do some crowd sourcing on a parenting board I belong to. It was a roughly fifty/fifty split, of parents saying that they imposed no limits and their children were able to self limit with no adverse affects. And then the camp we fall into, where gaming affected their behavior and needed to be managed for them. It is possible then that there is some kind of neurological susceptibility? my boys are both bright and unconventional thinkers, who often exist in the abstract and distracted side of the universe, could that be a factor? I am not asserting  it is related to overall intelligence, just the way your child's brain thinks and therefore functions.

You might also be asking what exactly is the issue here? and I suppose ultimately it comes down to your own individual parenting philosophies. We subscribe to an ideology that our children very much need to learn how to abide by social rules in regards to their behavior and conduct. Whilst not wishing to produce robots, we want them to learn how to harness the power of their creative minds while functioning within the bounds of conventional society. Simply put, we want them to be able to maximize the intelligence they were born with, by achieving academically, ultimately having a job they love and  possessing the social and self-managment  skills to be able to keep it.  Un-feted gaming with it's promotion of impulsivity is a threat to achieving those things.

And what is the answer? If John had his way all technology would be removed from out house. But I think that oversimplifies things, there is a strong social currency in playing the same game as everyone else, to remove it would be to significantly marginalize them. Plus it is always going to be there, I have known of many a 23 ( or 33 even) year old man/boy who has spent the weekend in gaming lock down mode, a scenario I am hoping our boys can avoid. Is it not our role as parents to identify these issues for them?  and enable them to develop the  self awareness of how it affects them? how it makes them behave?  and how it makes them feel?  To arm them with their best  ability to self manage their interaction with technology and gaming.

For now, we will continue the status quo, 30 minutes three times a week in term time and some time on the weekends. We will keep talking about it and continue to raise their awareness. But I think the most important thing we need to do is to be honest with ourselves. They are not really building cities, creating communities or learning programming, they are playing a game that is escapism, a social medium  and that  may or may not be having a detrimental effect on their vulnerable developing nervous systems.

Honesty too, to admit that when I  let my children  play a little too long because it is convenient to me, I am being a lazy parent, it's ok, everyone does it, sometimes I need the space,  just try not to do it frequently.  To admit that my children are being occupied playing a game, no, they are not stretching their minds so they can become the next Bill Gates, they just aren't.  Admit that when I  walk around attached to my iPhone, face booking, instagramming, just checking my email..... I am  not setting the best  example.

  But  let's be real, for better or worse, mine craft and gaming in general is a part of our lives now, we have gone too far to  take it back. Instead we will strive for less of it and more honesty and hopefully get there in the end and you never know, maybe one of them will end up being the next Notch after all, but probably not.

Perfect Purple Princess Party

Purple is possibly my least favorite color, it does not have many redeeming features in my opinion, for me the word evokes gaudy, psychedelic imagery. When you live with a four year old girl though, it is near impossible to avoid the purple reign. Last year, Millie developed an  obsessive love for Sofia the First, if you are unfamiliar with Sofia you either A: do not know many four year old girls or B: do not  have Disney Junior at your house. It was unsurprising then,  when Millie announced she wanted a Sofia party for her birthday. While I was successful in somewhat diluting the Sofia aspect, the  purple remained in full force.  So,  I kissed goodbye to the twee woodland fairy imagery I may have already  conjured in my head  and reminded myself once again of what should  probably be a catchphrase for mothers everywhere it is not about me....


Once I had reconciled our opposing party themes it became apparent that a purple princess party is actually quite fun and able to be taken in lots of different directions

Table and Food 

I think that the crepe paper flowers definitely made the decorations, they are Martha Stewart and I sourced them from Ebay ( much much cheaper than buying them here in NZ)

Surprise!! we went for a purple theme with the food, scones with blueberry jam and purple jellies with floating blue berries were both popular

 as was the purple lemonade and violet swirl meringues

Fairy Bread with purple sprinkles and princess crown sandwiches

Of course there were cupcakes too, I picked up these cute little Wilton fondant crown cup cake toppers on our travels to Canada last year

Party Favors and Craft

I have a documented love hate relationship with the party favor, I hate the bag of dollar store rubbish with sugar on top that you leave most parties with,  and therefore wanted something with a bit of integrity for our party favor. Early on we decided that we would give away mixtures of bake your own princess cookies. I made the purple sanding sugar myself, easy peasy just add some food coloring to castor sugar and let it dry ( who knew, certainly not me and the expensive colored sugar I have bought from  the cake decorating shop in the past)  the purple crown cookie cutters were sourced off the inter web. Then we  layered up the  cookie mixture, printed cards with the recipe on it and attached them to  the jar with the crown cutter. They were a big hit, and it was fun to get the reports trickle in of how much our party guests had enjoyed making them at home, after the party. 

For our craft activity we decorated wands and crowns, but I was so busy with the party I never took any photos of this. Believe me, the sequins we kept finding on the carpet in the following weeks is proof enough it occurred.

The Cake

In the end with so much other preparation going on I just wanted to keep the cake simple. I made Annabelle Langbein's trusty Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipe, layered it with butter cream and piped semi-ombre butter cream icing onto the top in rosettes . I like to think it was simple but effective.

The best part of the day, aside from seeing all the planning come together was the delight of this little girl and her friends, she was so very very  happy and all her purple princess dreams came true. 

And we all lived happily ever after................

Loving: A Good Vintage

My green kitchen is coming along nicely, just the pantry to go and I will have the green kitchen of my dreams. We have had a bit of back and forth on the color after initially painting with a pale green that made everything look very insipid. John talked me into this very minty green, and at first I was taken aback with the greeness , but wow, it really works.  I could sit and look at my minty cupboards all day long.

Kitchen in progress

My new/old kitchen is a perfect analogy for  life at this moment . It might not be new, it might not be full of bells and whistles, things might not be perfect or exactly how or where we want them to be, but we making the very best of what we have to work with right now, if we keep being patient and measured we will get to the right destination.
 Last week I had my first anniversary of changing jobs and what a year we have had. I have learnt a lot in the past twelve months and feel  privileged to work with such an incredible team of colleagues who are  eager to share their knowledge, and of course the children and families who allow you into their lives. And just like my minty green cupboards it was John that pushed me into this job, without his encouragement ( some might say coercion) I would likely still be in the same place I was a year ago, and unhappy. 

If  I had to take one thing from the past year it would be learning how to be measured and calm. Previously I worked in such a reactive work environment, the stress was enormous and I had very little control over it. I have been shown this year that when you are proactive, calm and competent the stress is eliminated. I am grateful to be learning that you don't have to have or do  everything right now,  I am working on being mindful and appreciating and feeling what is already in front of me, like making the most of a less than perfect kitchen in a less than perfect house.



I know that my minty kitchen is not for everyone but I am absolutely loving a new show I have discovered on sky, that is making me feel like it is perfectly acceptable to salvage furniture out of the inorganic collection and paint it bright colors.

I am talking about Kirsty's Vintage Home on the Living Channel, if you are a lover of all things vintage and are not watching this show you really should be. I have seen in an upcoming trailer she will even be basket weaving, yes that's right, basket weaving!!

This yellow chair is perfect, I the desk is one I salvaged last year and re-painted

This white chair was just sitting there begging to come home with me

We have a few recent vintage  additions at our house that I have  acquired from the very last ever in-organic collection  here in Auckland. I definitely salvaged less this year than in others as we are on a mission of decluttering but I am enormously happy with my new acquisitions. I love that so much of the furniture in our house has come from either the side of the road or the op shop and what this is teaching our children about the value of things and consumerism.

Finally love, love, love  that it is peonie season, I bought my first bunch today. I have decided that in this season of my favorite flowers, first peonies and then hydrangeas I am just going to buy fresh flowers every week, they are so fleeting, they make me happy, that makes me a better mother and wife, I work hard,  and for all those reasons and then some, I deserve them.

Joining in with Meghan and all the other loving