http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/comments/ stripy sock studio en helenandfraser@inspire.net.nz Copyright 2008 2008-05-12T19:49:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/take-yourself-out/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/take-yourself-out/#When:18:49:00Z These photos are of Midnight Espresso in Wellington - a favourite haunt of mine since the early 1990s. Sometimes the thing that I love about a place is how it doesn’t change. Everything else changes apace, so it’s wonderful to have this little portal of nostalgia availabe whenever I need of shot (of espresso, yes, but of memory also.) *** I’ve been busy with lots of my paid work over the past few weeks. I do enjoy my job, but it is so very tidal. By that I mean, weeks go by where the most I do is have email conversations with students and then their assignments come in and suddenly my life is not very much my own and I am trying to pack a 40+ hour working week in around family life. It is always a challenge. For all that, though, I am grateful to have part time work that firstly, I can do from home - allowing me to full-time parent, and secondly, is related to my passion: writing. There is a real sense of ‘coming up for air’ when I send the completed assignments back in their courier bag...I’m feeling that today. I have Magnus home today and tomorrow, but Thursday - his next kindy morning, I’m going to take myself out for the morning. I usually use the kindy mornings to do work or housework or writing work, so it will feel deliciously decadent. On the agenda will be a leisurely chai and chelsea bun in the library cafe, a loooonnggg mooch in the bookshop and library with no little hands tugging at my sleeves and, of course, some op shopping! I got the idea of taking myself out on a date from Julia Cameron’s ‘artist’s dates’ in The Artist’s Way book. There is something so valuable about indulging yourself. You go home relaxed and enriched. You get ideas. You become a nicer partner / parent / person. There is a cake, a book and a bag of op shop goodness with my name on it - come Thurday I will heed their call! 2008-05-12T18:49:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/six/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/six/#When:17:57:00Z Helen tagged me to write a six word memoir last week. A harder task than you might think! At first I tried to write something witty around words ending in ‘ed’, as in: “Fed, led, wed, bred, dead” but firstly, I couldn’t think of six words and secondly, that approach involves me foreshadowing my own death. Heh. Then I had the bright idea of looking at what pops up on my Flickr tabs - and chose six from that: “Family, blood, moments, garden, just give.” I think that is self-explanatory. And the photo above is to represent the peace of mind I strive for, but often don’t attain, The other part of the tag was to share six oddities about myself. (Where do I start? Ha!) -I spend at least 15 minutes per day dancing to loud music in my living room. I usually have a three song cycle on high rotate. At the moment it’s: “I’m still fond of you” by Cut Off Your Hands, “This is your last chance to be famous” by The Mint Chicks, and “Boyz” by M.I.A. -I am squeamish about slugs - just seeing them makes me gag, but I quite like snails. -Even though I never get around to reading all the books in time, I cannot leave the public library with less than ten books, sometimes more. Honestly, I’ll head there thinking “I have plenty to read at home. I’m just going to get that one recipe/poetry/gardening book I need” but I CANNOT do it. I see other interesting books, I remember writers I wanted to find, I procrastinate in the knitting book aisle and before you know it - huge stack of books. -Although these days we have a coffee machine and drink fair trade, home roasted coffee - some days I get a craving for an instant coffee. Hell, I was raised on the stuff. -I cannot sleep in a room with an open wardrobe door. Too much C.S.Lewis as a kid, I think. -I think of the yard birds (sparrows, blackbirds, starlings, wax eyes) as my pets, and everyday I feed them our toast crusts and cereal scrapings. There is even one big blackbird who comes and visits me when I’m weeding, hoping for juicy worms, but very bold. I like to think he trusts me. *** So there you go! That was fun. I invite any of you who blog out there to join in. Have a good day, dear ones! 2008-05-11T17:57:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/stripy-sock-photo-of-the-week5/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/stripy-sock-photo-of-the-week5/#When:09:07:00Z I’m very excited to bring you this week’s stripy sock photo of the week a) because it is a beauty and b) because it was taken by an accomplished photographer! Scoutj takes a good shot - there is a whole lot of beauty in her photo stream, but check out this beautiful boy who she shot for the amazing 100 Strangers Project. I love the idea of this project - if I wasn’t trying to write a poetry book, teach creative writing, raise two kids, grow food, make craft stuff to sell....I’d do this. I would. I love this shot, too. Flower as weapon. And this isn’t so much about the photography, but check out these fur-reaaky pancakes, apparently they are ‘Horton Hears a Who’ themed pancakes from the ‘International House of Pancakes’ restaurant. Woah - that’s a lot of blue food colouring. Anyway, I digress - regarding this week’s stripy sock photo - I love this - it is atmospheric, moody, it asks questions. I love the blur, the colour. It also reminds me of a friend I used to flat with, also called Helen. For a while we were “the two Helens” and she wore drain-pipe jeans and converse sneakers very much like the figure on the left (still does) and I wore interesting shoes and stripy socks (still do!) like the figure on the right. I’d love this one on my wall, I reckon. Thanks so much, Scout, for letting me use it. Hope you all have lovely weekends. I have a lot of work to do, but despite that I’m feeling pretty buoyant. Long may it last.  2008-05-08T09:07:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/yoga-buddy/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/yoga-buddy/#When:22:26:00Z I try to do yoga first thing in the morning, before everyone else is up. Sometimes Willoughby wakes up and comes to do yoga with me. The main difference in our styles is that while I try to hold a pose for a few minutes - he holds them for a few seconds before racing ahead. He can do my 30 minute yoga sequence in about five. I enjoy his interest and am trying to quietly encourage it, without appearing so enthusiastic that it puts him off. (Have you noticed that with older children? If you get too fired up about something they are doing, they swiftly decide it isn’t interesting anymore.) His favourite thing, though, is to do this pose - which he called his “try to kiss your own butt” pose. And then to giggle uncharitably at my attempts to get my rickety old body in the same position. Not a chance. That thing they say about youth being wasted on the young. So true.  2008-05-07T22:26:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/prehistoric-bites/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/prehistoric-bites/#When:17:50:01Z Willoughby made these dinosaurs (with a little help from his papa.) Normally I find it easy to resist eating the baking we do, because it’s for the children, right? Pre-kids we didn’t bother baking much, except for special occassions - but these days, with two hungry kids - we tend to ‘fill the tins’ a la the childhood many of you may have had, but I didn’t. My mother didn’t bake. If we were hungry we were offered crackers or fruit. (Oh sob sob, my tormented childhood. No fresh baking! Wail!) But, anyway, shortbread is hard to resist. Which is why we only make it a few times a year. Usually we make oat based things like anzacs, flapjacks, also hokey pokey biscuits and afghans and chocolate chip cookies. Note to parents of children obsessed with dinosaurs - buy dinosaur cutters! They will eat anything - pastry, bread, scones, biscuits, crackers, healthy oat slice… if it is in the shape of a dinosaur. Rowr! 2008-05-06T17:50:01+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/more-on-the-booke/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/more-on-the-booke/#When:20:06:00Z (Today’s image from a 1930s Wallpaper, from a book about Wallpaper in the C 20th.) My copy of ‘Swings and Roundabouts’ (see yesterday’s post) arrived in the mail.  I’m very excited about this book. The production values are high, it has a lovely matte cover, black end papers, a black ribbon bookmark, the photos are great. Hell, I even like the fonts. (Yes, fonts are important to me.) As well as not knowing about the photos, I also didn’t realise it is an international (though largely NZ) anthology. Consequently, I found my poem hanging out with the poems of Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney, Sharon Olds, and Louise Gluck. I know it is totally not cool to show that you are impressed/intimidated by things like this - but when have I ever been cool?? I’m not cool - I’m earnest, and geeky and find it hard to hide my emotions. I am in an anthology with Sylvia Plath. Holy c**p. To those of you who aren’t huge on poetry, this is the equivalent of being a big music fan for much of your adult life and then one day finding one of your own songs on a compilation CD with Elvis, John Lennon, Morrissey and PJ Harvey. Yeah, cue quiet freak out. There are dozens of wonderful local poets in here, also: Lauris Edmond, Bill Manhire, Anna Jackson, Anne Kennedy and many many more. It’s Mother’s day this weekend - this would make a lovely Mother’s day gift for any woman who enjoys poetry. Thanks for sitting through my two days of rabbiting on about the book. And one more thing - there is an interview with Emma Neale about the book on the National Radio archives here. 2008-05-05T20:06:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/swings-and-roundabouts/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/swings-and-roundabouts/#When:18:41:00Z In my continued quest to get better at shameless self-promotion, I’m excited to tell you that on May 2nd ‘Swings and Roundabouts’ was released. This book was edited by wonderful Emma Neale and I was lucky enough to have one of my poems selected. I haven’t received my copy of the book yet, so I can’t comment too much on the other poems but I’m confident that under Emma’s editorship they will be of high quality. The surprise to me about the book is that apparently it is “beautifully illustrated with photos of babies and children” - the editors didn’t tell us that, and it is a nice surprise. I’ll talk about the book a little more once I’ve seen it. There was also an interesting article in the Listener about Emma Neale’s new book, Spark and this anthology, and how motherhood has affected her. You can read that here, if you care to. PS - if any NZers spot any reviews of the book in the coming weeks, can you let me know? Thanks, darlings. 2008-05-04T18:41:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/stripy-sock-photo-of-the-week4/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/stripy-sock-photo-of-the-week4/#When:19:58:00Z This week’s gem is from Nikki - craftswoman extraordinaire and mother of the seems-not-so-devilish-but-actually-quite-sweet ‘devil child’. Those are Nikki’s shapely pins and she played around in photo shop to achieve that darling background. This week’s photo makes me think of cupcakes and broderie anglaise lace and other girlish stuff. Yum. Also, a link - I love Flickr and every week find images there that inspire me - found this yesterday - it makes my heart sing...the wind in her veil, the smile, the dress, the car, the winter trees...like a still from an alternate life I might have liked to live. 2008-05-01T19:58:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/el-corazon/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/el-corazon/#When:22:46:00Z One of the weirdest, and sometimes nicest, things to me about being an at-home mother and a writer - is that sometimes I go about the domestic routines of my day - spooning cereal into Magnus’s mouth (quite old enough to feed himself, but likes to stay baby), washing dishes, pulling weeds, making beds - and in my head can be the most esoteric, theoretical or emotionally-charged thoughts to do with things I’m writing or reading. It’s a strange juxtaposition, but in some ways it works, too. (Of course, often it is frustrating beyond measure, but I’m having a day of finding it amusing, so let’s roll with that.) But to the outside viewer, I would appear to be just drudging away - thanklessly cleaning up other people’s messes and spending hours creating food which is wolfed in minutes. This morning in between entertaining the kids, baking with feijoas and the usual round of cleaning and tidying, I wrote a long overdue letter to a friend in quick, scrawled bursts. While floodgates were opening, and scribbled revelations were taking place - Willoughby played with playdough and Magnus made a train track around my feet. Err - what was my point? I forget now. Something about motherhood, creativity, mess, the small daily dramas...I would try to make this post more cohesive, but I have to go and make the children lunch instead. (Maybe that was my point?) 2008-04-30T22:46:00+12:00 http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/poems-up-autumnal/ http://stripysockstudio.com/index.php/site/entry/poems-up-autumnal/#When:19:04:00Z My poems are up on Lumiere. (Big thank you, Lumiere, for publishing me.) The first one ‘Spell For Cold Weather’ is partially about longing for winter in an unusually hot autumn. I wrote it a long time ago, but that could be this autumn which just seems to carry on being sunny and bright...although thanks to the cooler temperatures of Taupo and my parent’s giant oak tree - I did get a taste of autumnal-ness whilst there. I do love kicking leaves. (I remember learning the word ‘autumnal’ in my first year of university - then I went to the park and ran around kicking leaves saying “It’s so autumnal! It’s so autumnal!” Yes, I know I’m a geek.) Do Americans use the word ‘autumnal’? I also love the words sassafras, epiphany and the phrase “twiggy pea sticks”. 2008-04-29T19:04:00+12:00