Swing from a crooked tree

I really needed to hear this today. The person behind the sentiment is children's book author Dallas Clayton. I discovered Clayton while browsing yet another of my favourite bloggers, Danielle of Sometimes Sweet, who reads Clayton's books to her baby boy Henry.

Clayton wrote his first book for his son. It was about dreaming big and never giving up. Now he's a bona fide author, and a philanthropist to boot, giving away books and reading to children all over the world.

And how about today's quote?

I don't know about you, but sometimes I am so afraid of the potential for danger that I miss out on the very real potential for joy. My girls are lucky that I inherited them half grown, or it's entirely possible they could have spent their childhoods in a bubble.

What is an acceptable risk? How do you balance safety with adventure? For yourself? For your children?

In which many lovely things happened on one weekend

We went to the Royal Adelaide Show, during which Mr B and I dreamed up all the animals we will keep when we live on our imaginary farm, and Em complained rather a lot until we finally made it (we did drag things on a bit, poor child) to the sideshow area, where she won a bounty of stuffed toys in prizes. We took the tram into Glenelg for a walk on the beach and jetty, followed by pizza and pasta and gelati for dinner.

We walked into the city to shop for part of Em's spring/summer/holidays wardrobe (her bounty #2 for the weekend), and Mr B got a beautiful, hand-blown glass jar from Jam Factory for Father's Day that will take pride of place on his desk at work.

We helped Em with her maths assignment. Well, Mr B helped, and was extremely proud of himself for figuring it out. I am most helpful at maths when I stay well away, so I got some work done in time for my 8am Monday morning deadline.

I made pie, a hybrid apple-pie/strudel recipe of my own making. It was delicious, even if I do say so myself. Moist and sweet and fruity.

In the meantime, happy Monday! And an especially happy Monday to all you lucky Labor Day-ers enjoying a relaxing three-day weekend. Soak it up, my friends.

New season's resolutions

It's spring! Winter is finito and today it is spring! Tra la la la la. I knew it was coming, I just knew it. Got the hint when baby leaves started appearing on the old grape vines, plumb trees blossomed, and banks of wattle exploded with gold, seemingly overnight. And now, even the calendar says it's official.

I have many, many resolutions for the spring, and I'm making myself accountable to you:

* Plant herbs and a little vegetable patch in my garden * Ride my old yellow pushbike to the beach for a picnic * Find an organic farmers' market for all non-homegrown produce * Write 30,000 more words on my novel (10,000 a month) * Exercise more to shed the blubber acquired from eating lollies in a bad job * Related to the above: start doing yoga. And actually keep it up * Don't leave a single magazine deadline to the last minute * Eat more meals outside * Get uber organised and start planning for Christmas * Learn how to take proper photographs with a 'real' camera * Related to the above: take lots of photographs while in Europe * Start a cooking scrapbook of favourite (tried & tested) recipes * Volunteer for Mr B's charity to help get all his comms set up * Find another local charity and become a regular volunteer * Keep fresh flowers in the house all the time * Don't waste the lemon-tree bounty. Make lemony goodies to share * Become a tourist in my own town, & explore my new home by foot, bike & car

Spring or autumn, what are your new season's resolutions?

Typewriter magic

Look closely at the pictures above. They are entirely made up of typewriter letters and symbols. Imagine what vision and patience it must take to be able to create these beautiful works of art, line by line. Then take a peek at this short video to watch Keira at work. She makes it look so easy! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJdNsXCz-X8]In case you are reading, dear millionaire Great-Aunt Tessa who I have never met and who possibly may not exist but who wishes to buy my love in order to make up for a long absence from my life (because I am inside a Famous Five book right now)... In case you are reading, dear Auntie Tess, a piece of typewriter magic would make an excellent start. My birthday is in October.

ps. Thanks to Honestly WTF for the tip-off. Yet another nice find, ladies.

Mr B + the old lady at the supermarket

(Image via)

She was perched on the little brick window-ledge beside the entrance to the supermarket, with a dinged-up walking frame next to her and a tin box for tickets and change on a fold-up table in front.

The sign said Raffle and her name tag said Pat Somebody.

"It's for Christchurch," she told us. We pooled our change and discovered we had $10 between us, so we purchased 10 tickets.

"Have you ever been to Christchurch?" she asked as Mr B filled out one ticket after another. Yes, he told her he'd been and it was lovely.

"I never been," she said. "I hear it is beautiful. But we gotta help them after that earthquake."

We agreed. Mr B went on filling in tickets. She said again, this time to herself, "I never been."

The old lady wore the front part of her shoulder-length, grey hair pinned back with little clips, just like you'd put in the hair of your daughter on her first day at kindergarten. Her cheeks were very rosy.

We asked if she'd had a good response to the raffle, and she said "Oh, yes! It's been very busy." And then possibly by way of explanation, she said, "It's a big basket of fruit and all kinds of foods. Very, very good."

Mr B finished filling in all the tickets, and handed the book back to her. The sly fox, he'd put the old lady's name on all the tickets, instead of our own. Once she understood, she was over the moon. Her grin was ear to ear.

As we left, Mr B said "I hope you win, Pat," and the old lady called out to us across the car park, "So do I!" We could hear her laughing and it made us laugh, too.

Mr B does these thoughtful little things all the time. It's why I love him so much.

Well, one of the reasons.

Say something nice

I saw this great "Say something nice" video over on Black Eiffel on the weekend, a public project sending positive vibes out into the city of New York. And of all times, I reckon New York could do with some positive vibes right about now. I hope it brings a little bit of positivity to your day, too. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwEYYI-AGWs]

New York

I had all kinds of happy stories planned to tell you in my post today, but I find I can't do it, because my heart is breaking a little bit for New York.

As I type, the whole city is being battered by a slow-moving hurricane that, the last time I saw the news, was the apparently size of Europe. Is that even possible? Could I have misheard? It's terrifying. New York is not set up to withstand hurricanes. A week ago the east coast suffered an earthquake (thankfully, my friends in Richmond Virginia are ok, but others are not).

And on Thursday, I found out that the apartment I used to live in in SoHo - filled with many, many good friends - burned up in a fire earlier this month. I feel so saddened for my SoHo friends and neighbours. Thankfully, none of them were harmed in the fire. But some lost absolutely everything: their homes, their possessions, everything from clothes and toothbrushes to travel mementos, wedding certificates and family photographs... as they rushed from the burning building in terror at 2am. Today, my friends are still homeless.

I have all these conflicting emotions: I'm grateful my friends weren't harmed; deeply saddened for their loss of everything they value and everything they need; so glad that other friends recently moved out of the building; relieved I wasn't living in the building at the time; and selfishly at a loss because 68 Thompson Street, that place in my mind that has represented the epicentre of my homesickness for New York for 18 months since I left, no longer exists.

Now, I am wishing upon every lucky star in the sky that my friends make it through Hurricane Irene unharmed, too.

A lovely conversation

Probably you know, although possibly you don't, that a little while ago I wrote a book. It's a short little magical realism novella called Airmail that you can read in one afternoon. A tad more recently (April this year, in fact), Airmail was published. And even more recently (yesterday, to be precise), Cam Robbins of Novelspot interviewed me about this whole process. This was definitely the most fun interview I'd done, because the questions were so thoughtful. Cam wanted to know why I wrote letters of thanks to people who bought Airmail, why I started the 'travelling Airmail' project, what was behind the dual settings of New York and Sydney, and what novel came next.

If you want to know the answers to these questions (and more), you can read the full interview here. I'd love your thoughts. Did I explain everything ok?

Oh and ps, the cover of my little book looks like this. I had very limited say on what it would be, which only made my relief all the greater when I saw this cover because I absolutely love it. Hurrah!

Favourite things: stay in touch

Happy Friday, dear friend. So the big move is finally over and we're settled in our wonderful new home in Adelaide. That's great, but I gotta tell you, leaving Queensland simply means I've added just one more State and one more city to my list of Far Away Places Where My Friends Live And I Miss Them. So in honour of staying in touch with the people we love across boundaries, oceans and hemispheres, this Friday I bring you: five old-fashioned, repurposed, or just a little bit kooky ways to make it personal.

1. Send a telegram Ah, the romance of a bygone era. When I arrived at our empty new house on a very wet winter's morning, suitcases under my arm and a furniture delivery truck waiting in the driveway, the telegram at the top of this page was waiting in my mailbox, encased in a lovely, vintage-style yellow envelope.

Ok, I sent it to myself. "Lord Cavendish" is someone I made up from the house we own and dearly love on Cavendish Street in Sydney's Inner West. But I wanted to test out this clever, old-school telegram service, and what better way than to send an inspiring message to myself and Mr B as we embark on our new lives in a new city? It's easy and cheap, so I guess you could say Mission Accomplished. Now I'll be sending telegrams all over the place. I love the vintage feel and the special surprise these 'telegrams' bring to a mailbox. Visit Telegram Stop to join the fun.

2. Commission a (free) portrait Or have a portrait done of someone you love. I've sent a photo of me and Mr B in to Free Crappy Portraits and I can't wait to see the result! I'm hoping it arrives in time for our first anniversary. The site says, "Send any picture you want immortalized by one of our terrible artists." They also encourage you to tell them a bit about yourself, funny, quirky or otherwise.

3. Reach out to a stranger University student Katie is running a little project called Letters From Strangers. The concept is pretty simple. She says: "You send me an anonymous letter, written to a stranger, and a self addressed envelope. I repackage your letter and send it off to a random stranger. Then, I send a random letter from a stranger to you." It's kind of like Postsecret, but more intimate.

4. Get inside the story Put someone you love inside one of the classic stories they enjoy the most. Let me explain. If your friend has a hankering for Mr Darcy (and let's face it, who doesn't), put her in the role of Elizabeth! Now Mildred (or whatever your friend's name may happen to be) can have the halls of Pemberley and the pectorals of Fitzwilliam all to herself. The folks at U Star Books & Novels will change the names of key characters to suit you and your friends. They also have a range of steamy romance novels for you to personalise.

5. Find a penpal Hermine Van Dijck lives in Antwerp, Belgium, and she wants to be your penpal. If you ask her, she will collect and send you a beautiful package of flowers, textiles, notes, whatever she can gather, and the idea is that you will do the same in return. Hermine and I have already been in touch via email, and we're both preparing little packages to send to one another. Take a look at her blog, Journal de Jours, to see the lovely packages sent and received.

That's all for now, folks. Have a great weekend! Yours truly, Naomi

Winter warmth

It feels like a year ago, although in fact it was less than two weeks, that Mr B, Emily and I took a little pre-move to Adelaide weekend away to visit my parents in the Blue Mountains, about an hour north-west of Sydney, Australia.It was one of those "best of winter" weekends, chock full of simple pleasures enjoyed with people we love. We toasted marshmallows, took walks in woods and gardens, played croquet on a bumpy lawn, ate Devonshire tea with scones baked in flower pots, explored thrift shops, waltzed in the kitchen (in track suits), played home-made Pictionary amid much hilarity, and celebrated Mr B's birthday dinner with home-cooked burgers and fries.

What do you like to do when visiting family?