If you have a few dollars more to spare, these two volunteer run charities need help
Badgar Emergency Wildlife Rescue
Help For Wildlife
Author: laranettle
Boobs!
Health officials in Leeds are in search of knitters to knit boobs for teaching aids.
New Yorker article – what’s more important, the milk, or the mother?
Women who breastfeed are less likely to abuse of neglect their children.
Salma Hayek (again) breastfeeds a child whose mother is unable to breastfeed. I wonder what will happen to the child when she goes home?
A horrible day in Victoria
Everybody knows by now that the fires in Victoria have claimed more lives than the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983. We’ve had a quiet day at home for the most part, but I just read that there are close to 70 80 8493 108131 people confirmed dead.
Here is a little snippet of audio, a young woman calls a radio station to ask for help, and then subsequent calls describe the dramatic rescue of 4 adults, a couple of elderly people, and eight kids under ten years old. I think this audio shows the human side of this awful day very well, but these people had a happy ending, unlike so many others.
The Victorian State government, in association with the Red Cross, have set up a relief fund. If you’d like to make a donation, click here.
P.S. The Red Cross also needs blood. If you’ve been thinking that maybe you should donate, please turn thought into action, you have a very good chance of saving a life.
P.P.S. If you can either offer emergency pet minding or any form of pet care, horse agistment etc, to the people devastated by the Victorian bushfires, or are in need of emergency pet minding or any form of pet care, horse agistment etc, due to the Victorian bushfires, please log onto this website, which will help facilitate both.
Mark posted some pictures, the last one of which made me happy, and also very sad. Click here, and scroll to the bottom to see a baby sugar glider that was rescued. Sadly, many other creatures weren’t so lucky.
Happy Birthday Alex!
My favourite nephew turned 2 today. Stay tuned for pictures of the cake mum and I made for him today, the reason my fingers are blue.
Edited to add – here is a crappy mobile picture of the cake. I left my camera at the party, better pictures whe I get it back!
Here is a link to Sarah’s blog entry – I still haven’t got the pics off my camera!
Don’t read this if you prefer to have only good news
I’ve often wondered what would drive a woman to become a suicide bomber.
Now I know. Rape.
RIP Lux
Lux Interior of The Cramps died yesterday.
Or, as we prefer to say, returned to Fabulon.
I saw The Cramps a million years ago at Selina’s, and despite the dire venue, the appalling lack of public transport, the sweaty crowds, the violent yobbos on the streets, and having to work the next day, it was worth it.
Confessions
1. After giving blood this week, I decided that I was invincible, and took on the top shelf of our fridge, which has not been cleaned/sorted/organised since we moved in in August 2007. Brilliant.
I discovered some miso paste that expired in 2005. Two years before we moved into this house.
2. I discovered a some really, really sharp knives a few years ago in an Eastwood $2 shop. As a big fan of sharpness in knives, I now have quite a collection, and give them to friends as housewarming presents.
Apparently, I also left one in reach of a small child, and then turned my back for 15 seconds. I turned back to find the kid holding the very, very, razor sharp knife in his meaty little fist, with about 4cm of the blade INSIDE HIS MOUTH.
No babies were harmed today. Touch wood.
I’m not a feminist, but…
I think women should be treated equally.
Another in an appallingly ongoing series, Kelly Clarkson isn’t a feminist.
*Edited to add – I *AM* a feminist, and I am appalled by women who say “I’m not a feminist, but…”, and I think they should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Or maybe second, after people who outline their lips in a lipliner that is much darker than their lipstick. And people in 4WD’s that don’t understand the proper use of the indicator. And people who feed babies coca-cola. And – I’d better stop now, I have work to do today!
Normal
Inigo’s Iron levels came back today (from a test taken on the 15th of January), and it’s normal.
The paediatrician is concerned about his iron levels because I refuse to feed him any beef. No lamb! Not even chicken. And not a skerrick of fish!!!!!
Of course, the kid eats a bucket load of lentils, heaps of spinach, and has fruit five times a day. So he gets non-heam iron followed by vitamin c three times a day, he probably has higher iron levels than most omnivores, because I pay attention to his diet, and I work hard at making sure he is developing a taste for healthy food.
Score one for the vegetarian diet!
The Knitters Guild
I finally decided to join the guild a few years ago. Guild membership hadn’t seemed relevant to me previously, because my local group only met on Monday mornings – not a viable option for most people who work.
I attended a couple of Blue Mountains meetings, as they are held on a Saturday morning. I enjoyed the meeting, the people were very friendly (hi Lynne!), and if it wasn’t so far away, I would like to attend more regularly.
When I was off work pregnant, I went to a few Epping meetings, and enjoyed them, though I did feel like a total outsider.
Then we moved house, and Inigo was born, and I decided not to renew my membership. Asking my dad for a cheque and a stamp was annoying the first time, but when I was also dealing with a newborn, I made the decision not to rejoin the guild until I was able to join/renew online. BPAY, direct deposit, whatever, I don’t care. But if I actually have to go to a father/bank and a post office, I’m not doing it. If I REALLY, REALLY cared about something, I might bother, but the guild just didn’t seem that relevant.
And there’s the rub. In order for the guild to be relevant to me, and to rather a lot of other knitters, it needs to change. And it seems very resistant to change – if they won’t even consider publishing an electronic version of the paper newsletter in case people that receive the paper version “feel left out”.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish them ill, and I hope they continue to live long and fruitful lives – but I would like the guild to be more relevant to me, I would like to feel that my input (and attendance) was welcome, and that we had something to offer each other.
I am a big believer in Grassroots Democracy – one of the reasons that I love being a member of the Greens is that they listen to me and my ideas. The same doesn’t seem to apply to the guild. New ideas are shunned, forcibly, and innovation is stifled before it can gather a voice.
Some people that I respect and adore are trying to make a change from within, by nominating for the executive. The AGM is still a month away, and already the slings and arrows have started to fly.
So now, we the knitters that want change, find ourselves in a position of opposition without seeking it, and a decision needs to be made as to whether the intention of peaceful, and gentle influence is worth the pain and anguish, or whether it’s better to give up on the dream of change, and start again from the ground up.
As I stated above, I am not currently a member of the guild, and as a non-member, I have no business discussing guild business. But I do hope that someone from the guild reads this, and understands that all we want is to be heard. We don’t want to radically overhaul the guild, we don’t want to knock off the executive, we don’t disrespect, loathe, or despise you, we just want to feel that we have a voice in a guild that is relevant to us, and that the guild respects and values us as members.
Disco Knitter 