Kreativ blog meme.

OK, first, I apologise for the K in creative and the lack of an E on the end.  That’s how the meme came to me. Alright then, OCD moment over.

Thank you  to the lovely Ami from Puff Pieces,  Alison from Melbourne Mumma and Jade from Lala London for awarding me the Kreative Blogger Meme!

So, here are the rules:

1. Copy the award to your blog
2. Insert a link to the person who nominated you
3. Share seven things about yourself that you haven’t told us before
4. Nominate other bloggers for the award – share the love
5. Link to their blogs
6. Tell the nominees about their award

Right then, without further ado…

1. I have a least three different handwriting styles.  One just for work, one when I’m thinking faster than I can write (this comes with my own invented short hand) and one for writing lists and cards.  Sometimes they cross over into each other, depending on my mood.
2. My two front teeth are not real.  As a child I smashed them out.  Chip is not a big enough word.  So what you see is really two big fillings.  They are screwed into my gum.  Noice. They need to be redone every few years as they stain from tea and red wine.  There is not enough original tooth for more permanent crowns.
3. I am (as many of you know) TERRIBLE at responding to these awards… partly because they fall into the category of something I have to do, even though it’s something I want to do! I apologise. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them, I am just slack, and well… this brings me to number four on the list.
4. I HATE being told what to do.  It’s like fingernails on a chalk board.  Even if something is good for me, even if I may actually want to do it, or have been thinking of doing it, a sure fire way of making sure I don’t do it is to tell me to.  Some may see this as a personality flaw, I like to think of it as a quirky charm… Ok that may be pushing it a bit too far!
5. I love clothes, no big secret there.  I have always loved them. They have an effect on my mood.  When I was about 5 in the rocking 1970’s, my favourite outfit was a pair of purple flares, teamed with a purple ribbed T shirt with a V neck and a brown belt. Funky yes? When I was in trouble (which given my hate of being told what to do may have been a bit) I would crawl under my bed and change into said ensemble.  Nothing could cheer me up like my funky purple outfit.
6. I stepped up my toilet roll OCD-ed-ness (is too a word) and will change the roll so it goes OVER the top (the only way it should go obviously) at work.  I am sure friend’s homes are next, *ahem*
7. I am sarcastic.  It’s a way of life.  I used to explain to bewildered looking people that I was being sarcastic. But where’s the fun in that?  Now I think – get with the programme or get out.  Nah, only joking!… or am I?

Now to pass this on to some other bloggers…

Melissa from The Things I’d Tell You...

Lucy from Diminishing Lucy

Brenda from Mummy Time

Kallie from I am a Real Mum

So, there you have it! Go forth and er, be kreativ… what ever that is, or, y’know not… we all know how good I am at responding to these awards! *ahem*

Tags: Clothes, Meme, tattoo

Five Birds

I have five birds tattooed on my right back shoulder.  They are small, and black.  I love them, they are my constant companions, and even when I can not see them, I know they are there.

Birds are a constant in my family’s life.  As are the nests they make and the feathers that clothe them.  There are a range of reasons for this, some easy to pin point, others less so.  In my house are feathers gathered along the way, on walks, in the garden, from holidays, day trips… Some I have even wrapped in bubble wrap and carefully packed in moving boxes. Some have been sent to me by friends with notes like, I saw this and thought of you…

I have nests too.  The Blue Eyed Boy made a nest from pine needles and brown fern fronds in Kinder.  Two years later The Green Eyed Girl made one from wire, collaged green leaves, and a black feather.  They both adorn the thin white mantle piece in the kitchen.  In a small, round pottery bowl I have a nest that had been left empty, and blown by the wind from a tall tree fern at our old home.  It is made from the tufts of soft brown downy fern that protect the newly forming fronds as they wait to unfurl, stray fluff from our old dog and a piece of pink insulation from renovating.

When we moved interstate, The Green Eyed Girl and The Blue Eyed Boy received parcels from my parents… two small white boxes with gold ribbon. Inside, two disused nests from their land… one made with sheep wool, fern and twig, one from horse hair and wool… we have them still. With the nests came a card for each child, talking about the nests and the birds, and how each year they make a new home, a home different than the last, but a home none the less.

There is a quote often bandied around when my family all get together at one of our homes, or the family shack… when the talk has been incessant, voices raised and full of laughter and wine and beer… a quote from a story that became a movie… and while the story itself is semi-autobiographical, parts of it could well have been my family.

In our family there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing…  goes the line from A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean.  It goes on to say… our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies…

Apart from the fact that I have two sisters, not a brother… and that Dad was an Anglican Priest, pretty much the opening lines of the story belong to us.  My Dad is a fly fisherman who ties his own flies.  Much of our younger lives were lived between the church and the family station wagon that drove us all to rivers, lakes, holidays where Dad could fish and we could follow…  the soft lap, lap, lap, of water on the edge of a lake, coupled with the long flick of fishing line as it cuts through the still air, once, twice, three times, before it is released to gently, silently, fall across the water towards a rise spotted through polarised lens…a linear ripple breaking the surface tension…  then the almost undetectable slow pulling in of the line, as a fly, made of feather, or fur, and thread, mimics the nymph, or the may fly… or other insect that is on the waters surface at that particular time of day.

I can spot a trout rising to the surface of a lake or river. I know how to walk with quiet calm movements, almost silently so as to make no detectable sign on land that a trout may detect.   I can stick a tied fly on a hook in the end of my thumb to better admire it’s beauty.  As a child I loved to peek into my Dad’s blue metal compartment drawers, full of feather, fishing line, nail clippers, scissors, waxes, threads…  I wasn’t really meant to be looking in it.  Then there was the time I helped Dad untangle his fishing line.

Throughout my life, whether I be child, brooding teen, uni student, young wife, mother, part of our family is centred around the blue metal drawers and its contents.  Contents that have now grown to fill a whole bench in The Shack, feathers a big part of that bench.

Part of our family is also centred around our family home.  For us, this is not the place we were brought from the hospital to… nor the place we spent our childhood in… we have lived in a number of towns and houses over the years.  Some of them were homes, some were holding patterns.  But to us, home is where we all are.  It is where the blue tin compartment drawers and their contents are.  It is where the hooks and the feathers are.

Our family make new nests, we construct, build, preen… then sometimes with the wind, move on again and build a new nest.  On my back I carry part of that home as five birds in flight… home may be where the heart is, but for me, it’s where the battered blue compartment drawers and feathers are.

Tags: history, tattoo, wrapped in love

I have been bitten by the fox with his sharp sharp teeth, he has left his mark on my shoulder.

Well dear readers, (if there are any of you left) I have once again been neglectful of my little blog. Work began again this week, and I have been busy setting up, being at a conference, meeting and greeting new families, and doing paper work. Thrilling. I know.

I have also been rather absent from Twitter (insert small sob here) and from blog reading (insert pitiful sob here.)

It has, however been an interesting week none the less.  It was the week I got tattooed.  Yes, that’s right tattooed. I have been wanting a tattoo for a long, long time.  Once, some years ago I even made an appointment to have one done, but the tattooist in question looked at what I wanted and said ‘no, can’t do that, the line work is too fine.’ Well, you can imagine the confidence that inspired in me.  I cancelled the appointment.

Since then I have continued the search for the perfect image, and the perfect tattoo artist.  My search ended last week when I came across a web site. I rang, they said  just drop in anytime to discuss what I wanted, so I did, but the artist in question was busy.  It was a little confronting walking in to a shop front and seeing 2 people being tattooed right in front of me.  I wasn’t sure where to look.   I made a time to come back and discuss my ideas with my chosen artist – for artists these people truly are.

I returned two days later and discussed what I wanted with Ryan, my chosen tattooist.  He went away, drew it up and showed me… I beamed! It was perfect. So, as I waited for him to set up I signed the paperwork. A man about my age and his partner were there too, he was choosing his design, and another younger man was being tattooed as well. He had 2 hours to still go and  he had been there at least an hour already… so, I thought to my self, how much can it hurt really.  I was to be tattooed in the shop front, with people walking past me on Smith Street Collingwood looking in. People came in and out, chatting to various artists, showing what they wanted, where they wanted it… one bloke even dropping trousers… meanwhile, I’m standing there with one singlet top strap and one bra strap tucked under my arm, shoulder bared having the transfer applied.  No one batted an eye lid at any of this. It was refreshing actually, people of all ages, shapes and sizes, baring skin, baring body, without judgement, without fear.   I checked placement in a double mirror, and then it started.

The buzzing noise was close to my ear.  There was light pressure, a small scratching sting… this is Ok I thought… easy.  Fool.  The second part was right on my shoulder blade. I had heard people say that being tattooed close to bone can hurt.  They are right.  But it was a controlled pain, of my own choosing.  After about 45 minutes I was done.  My tattoos were covered in plastic wrap and I was ready to go home.  A marked woman.  I love my tattoo, and am already planning to add to this one, or get another one.

For me, being tattooed was very personal.  What you choose to have put on your body, and where you have it, it is very personal.  A friend said I will regret having it done.  But I don’t, and I wont.  Someone also said I may regret it when I’m 90.  But I wont. If I’m 90 I’ll be happy to still be kicking and I’ll be able to say that I made choices about my body for me. And at the end of the day, it’s me who has to like it!

Note – the title of this post is what I wrote as my status on facebook when I arrived home from having the tattoo done.  It is also a hint at the name of the place I was tattooed.

Tags: blog, never say never, tattoo, twitter