B-Well Report: The Office Stairwell.

Early morning, glorious Autumn day, sky clear, birds on the wing, leaves turning... and I'm driving off to the underground car park. However, it's day one of my B-well journey and I take the stairs. Harsh fluorescent light, painted concrete, metal rails.  Not exactly a stroll in the park with the warm sun on my back.  It actually looks like the torture chamber that is a gym. 

Nothing like starting your wellness campaign in a fire escape.

 
Home time.  Going down.  Basement car park.
 
 

 
One step at a time.

Girls with Glasses Project

These days reading glasses are fashionable in that nerdy-chic way, and practical to wear, if wear glasses you must.  You can whip them off when you need to speak to someone and, generally, when you are out and about, they remain in their case. However, I am short-sighted and can't recognise my own children in the distance in the school playground or colleagues approaching from the far end of the corridor or read sub-titles on the television, menu deals at the take-away or street signs while driving especially in my town where they are inconveniently and incomprehensively placed on the furthest side of the street. 

I need them on when I am moving, but not when I come to a halt.  Look down and they have to be off so I can read the label, the recipe instructions or the street directory at close quarters. So they are on and off, on and off, on and off, all day long.  Infuriating.  I've no patience whatsoever. I've tried slinging them on my neckline, where they fall off when you bend over, parking them on my head like sunglasses where your hair get stuck in the wings and frankly it looks daft, and wearing them all the time which is a recipe for eye strain. 

So, I sense there is a market for the modern spectacle receptacle (it will need a name, 'spec-lace' ?) which just might be the next Big Thing in accessories for myopic fashionistas.  Etsy sellers look out.  No granny chains from Big W please. Something stylish in precious metal, leather, cord, ribbons or ethnic beads.  You heard it first here.

The product could be launched at a performance of the fabulous show, The Girls with Glasses, by Brooke White and Summer Bellessa.  Theme song: I am a Girl...Gonna Capture the World. Sylvia Plath. Lucille Ball. Marilyn Monroe, Bridget Bardot. Grace Kelly. Audrey Hepburn. Mother Teresa.  Marie Curie. 

Now where did I put my glasses?

The Fairies

Up the airy mountain

Down the rushy glen,

We daren't go a-hunting,

For fear of little men;

Wee folk, good folk,

Trooping all together;

Green jacket, red cap,

And white owl's feather.

Down along the rocky shore

Some make their home,

They live on crispy pancakes

Of yellow tide-foam;

Some in the reeds

Of the black mountain-lake,

With frogs for their watch-dogs,

All night awake.

   By William Allingham

Th faeries and elf need feeding.  It's the witching hour again.  Pity they can't live on dew drops and thistle down like their fictional selves.  Left-over fried rice beckons and I can hear the 'but I don't like this' welling up and the "I want the peas separate' and 'I'm full' and 'It's too spicy'.   

When I sound the fairy call,

Gather here in silent meeting,

Chin to knee on the orchard wall,

Cooled with dew and cherries eating.

Merry, merry, Take a cherry

Mine are sounder, Mine are rounder

Mine are sweeter, For the eater

When the dews fall. And you'll be fairies all.

  By Robert Graves

B-Well Report

I've signed up with Collage of Life to make some incremental steps towards a healthier lifestyle.   It's not so great to sit for more than eight hours at the computer and only walk to the tea room for coffee.  I have revealed to some colleagues that, in Winter, I can travel by car from my internal access garage to the underground car park in my office building, take the lift, sit down, log on and not breathe fresh air or have sunlight touch my skin all day!  If it weren't for the need to collect children from After School Care, I could do the reverse at the end of the day and not venture outside AT ALL.  Atrocious!  I'm not alone here either.  Now I have those hand weights in the wardrobe and I'm going to use them today.  

Photo: Little Wanna and Charly at Luna Park, Sydney (2009)

Crazy Hair Days

Image: Sketch for Crazy Hair Day fund-raiser on last day of Term 1 by Little Wanna.

School Holidays means Crazy Hair for me for two weeks.  So far we have been to the circus, seen Nanny McPhee 2, practiced bike riding, played school, gardened, played with Lego, completed jigsaw puzzles, had first soccer practice with new team (rather uninspiring team name of "United"), practiced soccer moves at home, bounced on trampoline (doesn't everyone seem to have one in the backyard these days?!), drawn elaborate pictures in hand-made books, written short stories, cooked flat and fat pancakes, had a few trial goes of the slow cooker, spent ages trying to work out why a fuse keeps blowing (unrelated to previous), researched hand blenders and still can't decide, spent way too much time on the DS and generally lolled about.  Need a hair cut.

Bandaid jewellery: It really DOES exist!

And we thought we were trend setters.  Just goes to show that Little Wanna was onto a marketable idea.  Must workshop some more with her at playtime.
From Third Drawer Down

Imagination: Bandaid Jewellery

Decorative bandaid worn solely for its aesthetic effect.

A new form of juvenile bling?

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?

Soaring through the air to find the bright abode,

Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God,

We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,

And leave the rolling universe behind:

From star to star the mental optics rove,

Measure the skies, and range the realms above.

There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,

Or with new worlds amaze th' unbounded soul.

Poem by Phillis Weatley

Styling by Little Wanna, Age 5