26 Tuesday May 2015
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Step one. Dream of where to go.
Step two. Save like a mad woman.
Step three. Deliberate on which planner to plan trip in. Hum. Hah. Try a few different sorts out. Gather supplies. Create templates. Try them out. Tweak them. Try again. Bin them. Google and Pinterest and Facebook planner groups. Drool and rub hands together.
Step four. Shop for cute accessories to go with possible planner options.
It’s not just me is it?
30 Friday Jan 2015
The Australian newspaper’s obituary for the late Colleen McCollough is a disgrace.
Two days ago we lost one of our most celebrated female authors. Throughout her life, Ms McCullough:
– earned a living as a teacher, librarian and journalist
– spent ten years researching and teaching in the Department of Neurology at Yale Medical School
– her novel the Thorn Birds has sold over 30 million copies worldwide and
– she was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree by Macquarie University.
And this is how our national paper leads the remembrance and celebration of her life, her achievements and her contribution to our nation…
Fuck whoever wrote this.
Fuck whoever approved this to print.
Fuck journalism standards in Australia.
Fuck how this paper/reporters/society values and quantifies the entire life of a woman – distilling it down to how she looked while she lived it.
Fuck them all sideways.
#everydaysexism #itstopswithme
12 Friday Dec 2014
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arc, Christmas, correspondence, gift, letters, organiser, penpal, planner, printable, stationery, template, tracker
Yes! Penpals. Remember them? I love letters. I love getting them and I love writing to people I hope like getting them too. Social media makes keeping in touch easy, but that contact can be reactive, quick and non-committal. It can also be a bit depressing really. I want more.
I want to write a ‘decent’ letter – you know, one that someone will pour over for a while and hopefully not find boring. Pages and pages of news and tidbits that the recipient will read over a good strong brew, they’ll smile and exclaim at what’s been going on and they’ll want to write back a reply. That’s the type of letter I want to get! Yes I could call, text or email but a letter! with a stamp and everything – now that’s magic.
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century. I watch period movies where people keep letters tied with a luscious ribbon and keep the parcel safe and cherished for years in an ornate box. They read and reread until parts are complete in memory. I have a lovely box I keep all my correspondence in – birthday and Christmas cards, the odd postcard, but I don’t have many letters. That makes me a little sad.
The PDF document linked below is what I’ve created for anyone to print. I use a type of planner called an ARC. It’s a discbound system and I’ve set up an A5 ARC (similar size to USA junior size) as my gift/Christmas and penpal organiser.
The document pages are set up on an A4 page so it prints 2 to a page and should print back to back with a margin big enough to be punched to fit discbound/rings or whatever type of organiser you use.
I hope you find it useful :). Happy letter writing.
26 Wednesday Mar 2014
I find it tough to stay positive through the drudge of my real-life workday. Staying mindful of what I want that would be better for me gets a little lost in the knee-jerk required to fix the perpetual drama of the day. And none of which adds to me achieving my goal for a more inspired life.
So this morning, I began with deciding on one small step I can do today that keeps my mind out of the humdrum and reminds me of my bigger picture. I plan to do it at lunchtime so it’s scheduled and is something I’m now looking forward to. Usually any break I take out of the office involves crossing off a chore on the to do list.
What’s your one step on the road to what you really truly want? Big dreams come true one little piece at a time. Chip away at it.
20 Thursday Mar 2014
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You know that little freckle on your lower inside calf? On the part of your leg visible when you sit cross-legged on the ground? The bit you hardly ever put sunscreen on because you wear long skirts and work in an office and are really only out in the sun when you’re walking to and from public transport on your weekday commute? Yeah, let’s talk about that one.
When you go to your yearly skin cancer clinic scan (and you DO GO TO A YEARLY SCAN, RIGHT?) and you strip down to your undies and get gawped over by a specialist – make sure they look at it if they don’t catch it themselves. My Doc caught it. And it came off that very same visit. A local anaesthetic needle and a few minutes razoring off a piece of me for biopsy and come back in a week for the results.
What you probably won’t expect is a phone call the very next afternoon rescheduling your follow up to a “surgery timeslot because it’s obviously cancer”. Faaaaarrrrk. Don’t do that, Receptionists. Don’t say that.
So you excuse yourself from your open plan desk and rush to an empty meeting room to ask for more info as you madly text your go-to friend who texts back saying find out more info. Then leave your workplace. Just leave. Talk to your doctor on the commute home and be assured if it was seriously bad cancer, he’d have you back in that day to cut it out.
Spend your week staying calm. Rely on the doctor. Heal your biopsy site and journal your heart out.
Go to your surgery, driven by your go-to friend who knows to talk to keep your mind off things. Stay cool while you get needled, carved and stitched. Make small talk about the embroidery skills of the Doc you’re trusting. Limp out. Keep your leg up for a few days. Look after yourself and know that whatever the next results say, that if further action is required, KNOW that you’ll do it. Whatever it takes.
It’s better to know, ladies and gentlemen. It’s better to be checked, have some news and deal with it, than it is to have a nagging worry in the back of your mind and avoid it. Living with your head up your butt isn’t living.
It’s always better to know. Always.
30 Saturday Nov 2013
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Just watch.
31 Saturday Aug 2013
There’s something a little disconcerting when the line at Bunnings warehouse is longer for a $2 sausage sizzle than it is to buy a badge or a wristband from our boys in uniform. The fact the armed services need to raise money to support the health and wellbeing of returned soldiers is insulting enough.
27 Tuesday Aug 2013
Stamen’s website allows you to type in a place and it renders a map of it in watercolour. Fantastic for scrapbooks of travel, framed on your home’s “Wall of Life”, or part of your travel journal all marked up with where you have been – or want to go!
Go here – http://maps.stamen.com
This is Brisbane.
Map tiles by Stamen Design, under CC BY 3.0. Data by OpenStreetMap, under CC BY SA.
18 Sunday Aug 2013
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I love this site – it’s a drop of the bigger picture every time I see it. When your life seems consumed with spinning your wheels doing all the “haves to do” – a reminder of the important stuff is a gift.
“Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer’s skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our interest has everything to do with those choices.”
04 Sunday Aug 2013
There are some extraordinary people who have spent their lives fighting for the preservation of the natural world – Dian Fossey, Ron and Valerie Taylor, Steve Irwin, Rick O’Barry, the Cousteau family, Trevor Long and David Suzuki, to name a few.
They have a lot in common. Tenacity. Drive. Determination. An ability to gather supporters around them – who either volunteer or work alongside them or fund their efforts. An ability to make enemies – dangerous ones at that when it comes to the “business” of poaching. They inspire the rest of us – particularly children. It’s a rare person indeed who has earned the respect and holds the attention of teenagers.
Standing tall amongst them is Sir David Attenborough.
One month after heart surgery to fit a pace maker, Sir David made good on his promised tour to Australia. An evening spent listening to him speak about his life – prompted by questions from Ray Martin. How he got into the role we love him for, what are his favourite moments, what was scary, how has the work of nature documentaries developed and improved over the years. So much to hear about and only 2 hours to hear it in.
Some lovely stories, stunning footage and an audience rapt to listen to it all. I spent the evening next to my nephew, who didn’t miss a word – and who didn’t miss his Xbox either. To see and hear a living legend was a treat well worth the money, time and the late bedtime on a school night.
02 Tuesday Jul 2013
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I can go months without reading novels. There are times when work is so much “input” that when I get home I can’t face concentrating on yet another thing. It hurts my head.
For the first time this year, I’ve felt like reading and I’ve gone back to one of my all time favourites – Patrick O’Brian’s brilliant series about the life of Captain Jack Aubrey and his particular friend Doctor Stephen Maturin. I love period fiction and this is one of the very best. There are twenty books in the series – with snippets taken from a few of them to make up the movie “Master and Commander” starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany as the lead characters. I still think they should do another one – do you hear me there, Russ?!
There’s something magic about delving into another world described in such a way that the times and the people become familiar, comfortable and safe. I’m with them every step of the way, I laugh at their jokes and fear for their lives.
I can’t imagine not being able to read. It seems like every new film released prompts another round of the old book vs movie conversation. And more and more, I’m finding acquaintances that have never read the books modern films are based on – or even heard of the original film a modern one is “remaking”. Considering the popularity of recent films like the Life of Pi, Les Miserables and The Great Gatsby, it’s a shock that some have never come across the written story first, and don’t seem prompted to read the book afterwards either. Movies show a story, sure, but to hear it fully you have to go back to the original storyteller and sit at their table.
Even if I only reread the books I’ve loved – I’d have enough to keep me going for years. It makes me sad there are kids out there that may never get the thrill of sitting quietly, for hours on end, alone and thoroughly absorbed in the tale of another time, place and people they’ll never meet otherwise.
04 Saturday May 2013
What a shame it is to have a schedule on a Saturday. I have appointments in the morning. It’s now 1am and I’d rather keep reading but a deadline looms that will only allow a maximum of 6 hours sleep. Another chapter and struggle through tomorrow? Yes/No?
Yes. I choose another chapter.
13 Sunday Jan 2013
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I think too much. Some topics go round and round my head so much I don’t remember what started it.
I am the sort of person who likes to be prepared. I plan. I plan everything. I plan what might happen. I plan what won’t happen in a million years. It’s not all bad. Sometimes I crack myself up completely. I have been busted rolling around on the floor. And I’m ok with that. I don’t mind if you think I’m nuts.
I like daydreaming. I like my imagination. I don’t mind that it gets whatcha might call “fantastical” at times. But I don’t like to worry. This I do too much. It affects my sleep. It hurts my head. It makes me grind my teeth…which also hurts my head.
So, in the name of the institution of New Years resolutions, I begin my trial of the “great written dump”. Each night I’m going to fill a page of what happened that day, maybe what might happen tomorrow, shopping lists, a knock-knock joke – whatever is rattling around my stupid noggin. I’ll put it all down and lay it to rest. I’m hoping sleep will come easier to an empty head.
03 Saturday Nov 2012
This weeks announcement that George Lucas is selling the Star Wars universe to Walt Disney doesn’t faze me at all. I’m in the “Han shot first” camp, so in my eyes, Mr Lucas sold out a while back.
I spent today unpacking more boxes and came across my Star Wars library. I haven’t added to it for a while, so there’s some gaps for sure, but I was surprised how much I remembered about each new twist in the Universe. I loved Timothy Zahn’s stories and the X-wing series was a joy.
My hope for the future is that Disney doesn’t cash in with a cartoonish fluff piece that doesn’t mesh with the novels already written around the original trilogy. ** For the benefit of young players, that’s episodes 4-6, not 1-3.
Some of the best sci-fi writers around have fleshed out generations of interaction, plot twists and tragedies faced by the characters we all know and love – I hope Disney will respect those.
And in case any Disney peeps see this, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t make “Vector Prime” until I’m ready. I bawled my eyes out for days when I read that – I couldn’t bear to see it happen.
Kthx, Laurene
24 Friday Aug 2012
20 Sunday May 2012
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Another Banksy got wrecked in Australia this week – the parachuting rat bit the dust. I’m not sure Banksy would care really. Graffiti in itself is meant to be transient. A fleeting glimpse of something a little more special decorating the ugly functional walls we build to trap ourselves.
I call his work art because it makes me consider the reality of life I might not normally see or understand. It’s poignant. It’s simple. It packs a punch. It’s much more than glary colours and funked up lettering.
This is art. Long may it reign.
29 Sunday Apr 2012
28 Saturday Apr 2012
25 Wednesday Apr 2012
This is my favourite photo from when I was in Gallipoli in 1997.
A bus full of Aussie and Kiwis poured out at each memorial site within the National Park. We didn’t have a guide to go around the 10 or so sites we endeavoured to get to – but then we didn’t really need a guide. We all grew up with the stories of these places. On the bus was the time to share with each other what we’d learned from childhood onwards about places called The Nek, Lone Pine, and Shrapnel Valley.
Once the bus stopped, there was no talking. Everyone scattered. Lots stood quietly, walking the tracks in silence. We tidied the graves as we went – picking out weeds, chipping of bird droppings, using our drinking bottles to water the plants that other visitors had planted previously. At two stops we searched for the grave stones of family.
One of our first stops was Anzac Cove. It was such a beautiful day. The sun shining, birds were chirping. The only thing missing was a bunch of kids skylarking in the water. You could have heard a pin drop, until Scotty started playing the “kiwi lament” on his harmonica. Awesome. Haunting. Extraordinarily touching.
We were running out of time as there’s a curfew on the Park access. We voted to skip a few places so we could make it up to Chanuk Bair – the New Zealand memorial. It’s a stunning memorial. It is also one of the few that still has maintained trenches at the site. The sun was starting to set so we had to go. This is when the boys in particular didn’t want to leave. A lot of bartering and maneuvering was attempted with the bus driver to come back in the morning and pick up those who wanted to sleep rough on the hill. No go. Such a wrench to leave – no one was ready to go.
Lest we forget.
15 Sunday Apr 2012
I like a fair fight. Nothing below the belt. No name calling. And leave our mothers out of it. But, if I gotta fight, I’ll fight.
Nothing pushes my buttons more than having my opinion dismissed as irrelevant. Every person knows when they are being put down. It is a deliberate and cowardly move and there is nothing innocent about it. (NB: if you do this and claim you didn’t mean to start the argument and it is the other person’s fault for misunderstanding you – you’re lying to yourself). It’s the worst kind of dirty fighting. We all know what’s going on.
That’s the bit that gets me. My reactions aren’t a sideshow amusement for you intellectual giants. They are real. And if you’re that friggin condescending that you have to belittle me into backing down so you don’t lose – then you already have.
24 Saturday Mar 2012
Well that is quite some outcome. Today, the Queensland Labor Party has been annihilated.
I love election days. I don’t like the campaigning, the speeches, the debates (if they happen) or the gazillion media opportunities splashed in front of me. I don’t trust them.
But I like voting. I like having my say. For my reasons that I don’t have to tell anyone, but I believe are reasonable and honest for me.
That’s what women handcuffed themselves to gates and got arrested for. That’s what they marched and picketed for. So that my voice would be heard as an equal one amongst the many. A lot of countries don’t let women vote. I am fortunate – and ever mindful and grateful for living in a country that does value my voice.
25 Saturday Feb 2012
Is it too much to ask for real estate agents to update their online listings? Is it? I went to 7 open houses today – 2 of them were already Under Contract – but no element of the listing advised that. I could have gone to other houses I’d actually have a chance at buying at these times instead. To add insult to injury, one house I drove past for a stickybeak on the way to another had a SOLD sign up. FFS!
18 Saturday Feb 2012
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Art. Writing. Website. Music. Home. Work. Health. Cooking. Painting. Travel. Song. Craft.
31 Tuesday Jan 2012
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breathe, calm, centre, Jedi, perspective
I’ve been thinking about perspective…
If you consider the individual parts that make up an adult life are:-
> work – the what, the where, the who (oh my goodness!), the rules, quirks and the whhyyyyyy
> home – the where and the how of living the life you choose
> people – I’m not gonna lie, I am the sanest person amongst my family and friends 🙂 and
> ‘things’ – whatcha got, what’s busted, what works and what I want
then these four areas in my life are all on the move at the moment. Not exactly teetering (not yet), just wobbling a bit.
I feel the need to fix everything – to sort situations out then and there. All gunho and doin’ the stuff. I think most adults do. In watching others deal with the odd curve ball, I try to emulate how they stay grounded and focussed – to not get wound up or beaten down.
So, I’ve begun my very own Jedi mindtrick – telling myself to breathe. Consciously, deliberately, drop my shoulders down and B R E A T H E. Maybe by the end of my 366, I’ll have figured out how to manage it without so much effort…or I’ll have lost my marbles trying.
17 Tuesday Jan 2012
11 Wednesday Jan 2012
This is the 12 month anniversary of the floods that immersed Queensland, NSW and Victoria. Closest to home, water thundered through Toowoomba, Murphy’s Creek, Grantham, Ipswich and Brisbane.
Our home wasn’t inundated, we didn’t lose anyone we knew. But we watched and waited. We hugged and prayed. We stayed up on vigil, and sent phone bills through the roof. We tweeted and facebooked to connect and to help. We collected and donated. We dug and we scraped. We washed and we dried.
And we’d do it all again.
11 Wednesday Jan 2012
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Breathe. I always have a choice. Always.
06 Friday Jan 2012
This is my all time favourite book store in Brisbane. Folio Books is one of my go to ‘happy places’. When anything gets me down, I can get an hour’s respite from hell itself standing in front of even one of its shelves.
When I win the lotto, I will spend an OBSENE amount of money in here.
