A life less digital

Make your own laptop

Posted on September 19, 2012 | 2 comments

I was in one of those over-priced Belgian cafes, filled with equal quantities of rustic wooden furniture and jars of chocolate spread.

Next to me was a smartly dressed family. On a rustic wooden breakfast table, they were occupied thusly:

Dad – with iPad resting on muesli bowl.
Mum – on iPhone, with salad bowl of coffee.
Toddler in high chair – with iPod resting on ridiculous gourmet salt shaker.

They were probably content and well-fed. To me, they looked like 3 people who were killing time until newer, slightly thinner versions of the other family members are available at the Apple store.

Digital death

I spend a lot of energy ‘saving’ my kids from dying an early digital death. As the title of my blog suggests, I’m trying really hard to make sure their lives are not ruled by technology.

I am failing.

My children used to make magnificent craft. Behold a scale model of the Great Wall of China.

The great pile of …

Now, to compensate for the fact that I am depriving them of electronic wizardry, this is what they create:

Can you tell it’s the Windows startup screen logo?

And most impressively, there’s a Logitech mouse to go with the paper laptop.

Logitech’s latest prototype mouse.

This came back from a school holiday club:

The screen is a bit small, but it’s got an incredible battery life.

And our little animal friends frolic in a forest of cables and keyboards.

The perfect place to hang out.

I will continue to paddle weakly against the tsunami of digital stuff. I have my inflatable armbands, and kid-proof passwords on all my devices.

Here’s one I wrote earlier

Slightly ranting about kids, technology, good and evil. I can’t decide. Internet = evil cesspit of narcissistic idiots chatting to gambling-addicted paedophiles? Or Internet = global community of inspiring humanity sharing knowledge and joy? Depends on which parent I am talking to …

Things I say to my kids that my mum never said to me. Here are some things I say to my kids that my mum never said to me. Modern parenting just seems a little more complicated these days …

2 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged craft, family, homemade, iPad, iphone, kids, laptop, technology

As useful as a metaphor

Posted on August 25, 2012 | 3 comments

I like words. I have clever friends who write stories and books and wonderful things. But I have never had an urge to write a book. It sounds like quite a lot of hard slog.

If it’s true that “everyone has a book inside them”, mine would be a small attractively-designed pamphlet. I’d use a modern sans-serif font, and include random observations with too many metaphors.

For example:

In shorts, his legs were exactly the same beige as his eco-bag. Feisty organic salad vegetables jostled with a local paper and a ball of string. The cucumber was clearly winning.

Offers of help disappeared, like drops of water in a hot frypan.

There was a micro-pause in the conversation. A sliver of a second when I could feel my anger rise, as unpleasant as hot bitter orange juice.

She had lips so thin, she could have been wearing lipstick on her gums.

I saw an oil slick of black taxis oozing out from the station, sliding in to the pastel purple morning light.

He had a head shaped like a potato. A potato that you turn over in your hand at the supermarket and put back, because of its weird shape.

And here’s one I wrote earlier…

A good night in. It’s been a good night in. Husband is away, so I’ve had some great nights in at home…

We are all alone, together. Looking down the hill, the lights of the party twinkled and crinkled through the trees. The wafts of voices floated up past me in the dark.

I heard a bus shelter singing. Last night I heard a bus shelter singing. I was sitting alone, watching the lights of a basketball court flicker on and off, waiting for the promised number 46.

3 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged books, content, metaphors, stories, words, writing

Lazy summer days plus Chipmunks

Posted on July 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

Alvin and the Chipmunks have a Facebook page, and an official app. I know this because I have just watched Alvin and the Chipmunks! 3! Chipwrecked! (I added in all those extra apostrophes. It’s that kind of film.)

Ugly singing proto-squirrels? Yes, it’s school holidays. Late afternoon movies on demand are a special treat here. I get to hear Chipmunks sing Michael Franti AND Katy Perry, whilst I do my cross stitching. I’m down with the kids.

[If you need to get involved in their demented furry world – you can Munk Yourself.]

Anyhoo… It’s warm and bright and summery. I’ve just moved house. I shall increase my lazy summer blog content with some pictures.

A whole lot of fudge. Just looking at this much refined sugar made my teeth ache. I wish I’d asked what flavour the blue one was…

More blue food. I bought these cakes to celebrate the majestic and dignified reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

This is clearly the missing evolutionary link between strawberry and octopus. Not sure if this supports or refutes the theory of intelligent design, but isn’t it cool?

First World Problems

Posted on June 12, 2012 | 3 comments

I live in the First World and I have problems. Some people call this ‘White Whine’, but as I’m not technically white, I prefer the term ‘First World Problems’.

I’ve just returned from a week in the English countryside, where we had a lot of rain, and very little Internet access.

I found small transient pockets of 3G as we whizzed through towns. As husband drove, I frantically updated and refreshed as many mobile apps as possible. Then I had to put down the phones as we swerved through green hedge-lined tunnels of car-sickness.

Getting a decent Internet connection was a complete pain in the bum. So we ate a wide and varied selection of fried fish and fried potatoes, moaned about the weather, and watched Jubilee TV.

Here is my current list of other First World Problems:

I don’t buy yoghurt because there are too many choices, and anyway, it’s just a pretend-healthy tub of sugar + dairy nonsense.
The cafés at garden centres have uncomfortable seating.
My mobile phone screen is always smeared with ear grease.
I have too many plastic shopping bags, but I don’t want to put them in the rubbish because they will enter the waterways and strangle dolphins.
I still don’t know which of my relatives I should add to Facebook. I think mum has stopped trying to Friend me.
I am a little bit embarrassed when my (Chinese) parents bring their own toothpicks to (non-Chinese) restaurants, and pick their teeth after a meal.
I don’t have time to read Vanity Fair properly anymore.
My Kindle now looks out of date and unfashionable.
I still don’t let my kids to wear Crocs in public. Unless we are near a large body of water.
I don’t know what threadcount my sheets are.
I read blogs written by people who are more creative, funny, rich, stylish and/or youthful than me. It makes me feel inadequate.

3 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged carsick, chinese, country, Crocs, driving, facebook, first world problems, Kindle, mobile, parents, phone, plastic bags, threadcount, toothpick, yoghurt

Get out of my house

Posted on May 18, 2012 | 3 comments

[Warning: This particular blog contains no humour, or wit. It is just me complaining.]

There are strangers in my house.

Well, it’s not really mine because we are renting it. That‘s the problem. The landlord is selling the house, and strangers are potential new owners.

Once again, we are boxing up and moving out.

The ‘For sale’ sign appeared a few days ago, and a steady stream of smug, anxious professionals is coming through. They want to buy ‘my house’.

My son’s face crumpled slightly when I told him that we have to move, so I talked up all the positives. New = good. It’s exciting. Woohoo…

I could write something thoughtful about having a sense of place; connection to physical structures; belonging in a community; the need to ‘nest’… blah blah blah. Instead, I will just say that I slightly want to vomit at the thought of moving house again.

[Insert wise words “At least you’re not moving overseas.” or sensible comments “You’ve done it so many times before, just get on with it.”]

Our local squirrel has offered to help me pack.

And here’s one I wrote earlier…

Where do you go when you press Home? Does your life have a ‘Home’ button? I’m back home (Sydney) after a brief visit to London (new home).

3 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged home, London, move, moving house, packing, relocation

A good night in

Posted on May 3, 2012 | 5 comments

It’s been a good night in

Husband is away, so I’ve had some great nights in at home. I have been surrounded by:

Hand, foot, cuticle and nail potions
All the remote controls and phones in the house (some now with very supple heels and strong nails…)
Endless singing and talent TV shows
A selection of remaining Easter chocolate and party bag sweets
All the cushions.

I’m not really alone as the kids are asleep upstairs.

I love going to tuck the kids in before I go to bed. I re-arrange their duvets over disordered limbs and dense breathing. They smell clean.

They’re still and complete and quietly humming with life. Like small people-shaped batteries, furiously recharging themselves on dreams of zombies, rainbow flowers, vanilla fudge and high-speed trains.

Or maybe that’s what I’ll be dreaming of, after a little too much chocolate and cuticle conditioner.

Good night.

5 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged chocolate, cushions, dreams, kids, nails, singing, sleep, tv

I heard a bus shelter singing

Posted on April 21, 2012 | 5 comments

Last night I heard a bus shelter singing. I was sitting alone, watching the lights of a basketball court flicker on and off, waiting for the promised number 46. There was a gentle “Ah – oooo. Ah.” Like Ladysmith Black Mambazo (circa 1986) under a large bucket. It was a calming, meditative repetition of those 3 notes.

This bus stop whale song was magical, until I realised it was coming from the shelter’s brightly lit advertising sign. Each time it scrolled to a new ad for highly engineered underwear or lifestyle drinks, a distant South African choir sang sadly: “Ah – oooo. Ah.”

Colour starvation

In these drippy flannel grey spring days, I love colour. My eyes are hungry for bright shiny colourful things. Like these…

Resin chopsticks against a sad grey sky.

I’ve never used these as chopsticks. Far too chunky and clunky, and slightly bent from the move to the UK. But beautiful to look at. [Dinosaur Designs resin.]

Happy patterns and colours

Well, look what happens when I shop for clothes on a dull flat day… [Very creased Josh Goot and some faux-Missoni.]

Wizard of Oz felt rainbow

Look how utterly terrifying that faceless flying monkey thing is.

The magic carpet

This is a magic carpet and a prayer mat. That’s the kind of school we go to here.

And here’s one I wrote earlier…

Pretty things offscreen. The more of my time that is sucked up by websites, email, television and mobile phones, the more I appreciate solid physical beauty. Here are some pictures of pretty things I have seen offscreen…

Wandering in the www garden. I tend to lose all concept of time as soon as I open up a web browser. I start with a task (e.g. look up a train timetable), then somehow find myself 1 hour later looking at pictures of husband and wife cutlery.

5 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged bus, bus shelter, colour, music, photos, pictures, singing

Love is not dead, it’s just resting

Posted on March 30, 2012 | 2 comments

How often do you tell your loved ones that they are loved?

On a sliding scale, I think the most romantic medium are (with 1 being most lovely):

In person – the most romantic. A bonus if it’s with eye contact too, not as you’re picking breakfast cereal off your top and your partner is sailing out the door.
Post – delightful. I adore paper. Send me anything by post and it immediately gets Bonus Points for effort.
Telephone (talking) – still quite romantic. Not sure where Skype falls in this list. Maybe between 2 and 3, depending on your connection speed and quality of web cam. “What?? What?? I can’t hear you. Why is the video so fuzzy?” is a mood-killer.
Email. Well, I guess it’s sort of like a letter, so depending on the content it can be romantic. It’s not romantic if it ends in the request for an urgent cash transfer in US dollars.
Telephone (texting). See story below.

Last week, I was out and about in town, hanging with the hipsters. Browsing through displays of vintage glass bottles; admiring photographs of artist with their heads covered in shaving foam etc.

It was sunny. I was happy. In this general spirit of well-being and happiness, I sent husband a text: “I love you. Lots.”

A few minutes later, he called back: “Are you OK?”

I paused. “Er, yes. I’m OK. Hi.” (Puzzlement.)

Husband: “I got your text. Thanks. Just checking that you’re not um …” (Uncomfortable pause.)

Me: “What?”

Husband: “Are you OK?”

Me: “Yes… I’m not standing on a cliff about to throw myself in to the sea! I was just sending you a lovely text!”

Husband: “Right. OK then.”

So that’s how it is in our relationship. I love you = Cry for help. Just to be clear, the next time I said “I love you” I added “but I’m not going to kill myself.”

2 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged husband, love, romance, text

Do you know who I am?

Posted on March 13, 2012 | 6 comments

There are some questions that I find really tricky…

What’s your blog about?

“Oh cool – you’re a blogger. What’s your blog about”? he asked politely. And my mind was blank. After taking a strategic sip of my drink, and pretending to adjust my socks, I replied “Um, just stuff I think about. Pictures of things I like.”

Loser. (Me – not him. He was perfectly nice.)

This blog really is mostly for me, rather than any specific audience. A very lazy digital diary. Maybe when the kids are older, I can pass this diary on to them and they can probably laugh and maybe wonder at the online me.

If my thoughts are little winged creatures flitting around my brain, then this blog is digital fly paper. Sometimes thoughts just fling themselves in to my sticky blog and get stuck. Sorry.

Where are you from?

I was trying my very best to be the charming corporate wife. Husband was still in Sydney, and I was in London meeting his new Big Boss. All was fine, until he casually leaned out of his bright purple v-neck cashmere jumper to ask “And where are you from?” I must have looked confused, because he followed up with “What’s your background?”

I paused and quickly scrolled through the various options in my head – place of birth, where I grew up, race, current address, culture? More mental scrolling… Big Boss and his jumper looked slightly worried that I looked worried.

“Are you working?” he asked, simply and slowly. Phew… He was just asking that other old favourite: “What do you do?” I launched in to my standard pitch – currently running a household (unpaid), and in between jobs as digital content manager/ writer (hopefully paid).

I felt as if I had just dodged a tricky interview question.

Who are you?

Along with “Release the hounds!” I have always wanted to be able to exclaim haughtily ”Do you KNOW who I am?” No need to explain or describe myself.

Actually, I do need immediately to explain myself – unless I become an arch villain with a pack of zombie-dogs, I won’t be using those two phrases in the same encounter.

6 Comments

Posted in About me

Tagged about me, questions, work, working mother

A life less digital

Make your own laptop

As useful as a metaphor

Lazy summer days plus Chipmunks

First World Problems

Get out of my house

A good night in

I heard a bus shelter singing

Love is not dead, it’s just resting

Do you know who I am?

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