December Fly on the Wall - The Month of Firsts and Lasts

It's time once again for Fly on the Wall. In this month's instalment 8 bloggers are all joining up to show you what things would look like if you were a fly on the wall at their place. Below is a list of all participating bloggers, be sure to visit them all to see all of the fun.

Baking In A Tornado 

Menopausal Mother                   

Spatulas on Parade  

Never Ever Give Up Hope             

Bookworm in the Kitchen               

The Blogging 911                        

Go Mama O                               

So normally my Fly on the Wall posts are full of crazy quotes and silly fun, but this month if you'll indulge me just a teeny tiny bit I'd like to do something a little bit different. There are still one or two quotes, but the rest of the post is sort of a photo slideshow. You see normally life around here is pretty boring and uneventful but this month was different. This month we actually had things to do, places to be and for once I actually remembered to document some of it. 

So to start December off Miss K had her very first ballet concert. 

We had a mad rush of dress rehearsals, stage rehearsals, make up practises, costume fittings and last minute panic. There were three performances in total over 3 days in front of audiences of at least 200 people at a time. Things were crazy to say the least.

To say I was a nervous wreck was an understatement. I watched my mum do this with two girls for over 15 years and she always made it look so easy. I sent the above text to Natalie on the second day of performances. It was the first time Miss K's father and I were going to watch her dance on stage, and I expected to be a blubbering mess. So there we all were sitting in the audience, ready for her to come on and the music to start. I grabbed her dad's knee for support and took a deep breath. Miss K came on stage and I was proudly holding all ugly crying back with the power of determination and the knowledge that I look like a raccoon if I cry with make up on. It was starting to look like I was going to be leaving the tissues in my handbag until I turned to look at Miss K's father and see him crying like a baby. So the tissues got put to good use after all, and I only teased him for several hours after the concert. 

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Me: This is why I don't wash my car. It's been pooped on twice already in the space of an hour and now it's covered in bug carcassesses. Carcasses, carcii? What is the plural of carcass? Oh whatever, in any case the little buggers are all over my car right now.

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Two weeks after the ballet concerts were done and dusted Miss K had her first ever piano concert to perform at. This was a lot smaller thankfully because I don't think I could have handled another massive production so soon after the first one, but Miss K again coped with everything beautifully considering she's never played the piano for an audience, plus she was the first performer of the whole concert so she couldn't even look to any of the other students to see how it was done.

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Miss K: Mum, high five. (pulls her hand away and dabs) DAB!

Me: Did you just dab on me? You are so out of the will right now young lady.

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A week after the piano concert Miss K had her first school concert, her class were dancing to a Justin Timberlake song and we spent weeks practising the moves at home together, so I was pretty confident that given the barrage of stage appearances she'd made by then plus all the practising meant we had this one in the bag.

Miss K's costume for the school concert

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Me: I felt so awful, the announcer came on the mic and said the first song was going to be a Vanilla Ice medley, and I accidentally said "Oh no" really loudly. 

Nat: Worst mum ever.

Me: I didn't mean it to come out. I even had to turn to Jason afterwards and ask if I'd said it out loud. It's not my fault though, they should have known that people there were going to hate Vanilla Ice. 

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Finally we had the last day of school for the year, which means that my little girl is no longer a preppy. She is now moving up to first grade and we have officially survived her first year of school. 

Miss K on her first day of school and on her last day of school for the year.  

I've been feeling a little nostalgic this past week and am already missing the good old days. Not least because I was helping in class every Friday for the majority of the year and her moving up means I no longer get to help out any more. It was a huge relief to get to see Miss K in class and know that she was actually coping perfectly with starting school and I will always be grateful to her teacher for indulging my panicking and letting me stick around for so long. I'm also very grateful she would pretend that I was helping out for Miss K's sake and not my own.

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Me: Miss K would you please hurry up and make your lunch. No, that's not making lunch that's recreating the opening scene from the Lion King with a plastic tub. 

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So that's it from me for the month. We are now in the count down to Christmas here and looking forward to the 5 weeks of summer holidays to go. I'd like to take a second to thank all of you for coming and visiting with me every month this year for our special brand of crazy. Don't forget to visit the rest of the bloggers participating and I will see you all next time.  

Almost almost famous

So one day, many many years ago, (or three years ago for anyone who always needs specifics) I wrote this post about what I had originally wanted for this website. I complained that the blog was three months old, and that people needed to start recognising my obvious talents already. Well three years have passed since I started this home away from home, and while many things have changed over that time, the change I hadn't even seen coming has been my attitude towards getting noticed. Which made a series of events which happened this week, and my reaction to said events all the more surprising. Allow me to elaborate.

So on Monday morning I was enjoying a peaceful coffee with mum, Miss K was safely dumped on handed over to the capable staff at her kindergarten for the day and I was enjoying the unseasonably warm day (I loves me an El Nino weather pattern.) My phone pinged to let me know I had received an email, so I reached over to it and opened my email app. Had I realised what awaited me at the other end of that notification sound, I would have put my phone on the floor and taken to it with a well placed foot. (OK not really, I can't survive without my phone)

I had received an email from a gentleman advising he wanted to discuss my blog for ABC 7:30 and asking for my mobile number. Now normally I don't hand my phone number out willy nilly to total strangers, but I was feeling good in my warm spot on the couch, so I figured what was the harm. At the time I didn't really pay attention to where he was from, because ABC 7:30 made no sense to me, so I just assumed it was another website I'd just not heard about. I've never really had my finger on the pulse of what's popular. The next thing I knew, I had a voicemail message telling me that he wanted to interview me for the 7:30 Report on channel ABC. For any of my wonderful non-Australian readers (and for any Aussies who don't really watch ABC because art shows and documentaries are not your cup of tea) the 7:30 Report is a national current affairs program which runs nightly on TV. Despite the fact that I stopped watching ABC when they swapped most of their kids programs to a dedicated second channel, I still recognised the name of the program when he mentioned it in the message, and immediately began to freak out. Mum saw the slack jawed look on my face as I hung up my phone, and immediately began to think I'd just received a message that someone was dead. So when I told her what the message really was, her face mirrored mine. If we were at a carnival I'm sure people would have started dropping balls in our mouth in order to try to win a poorly made stuffed animal. (I'll just leave that mental image right there for you.)

Eventually I got over my initial shock and called the guy back. We ended up chatting for about twenty minutes about this blog, and the blogging culture in Australia as a whole. At the end of the interview he told me he wanted to interview me on camera for a report they were going to run on mum blogs in Australia, and while I thought his report was probably several years too late, given the mum blogging craze really reached its peak quite some time ago I agreed to allow him to send a crew over to my house. We ended our conversation and then reality hit me. At some stage during the week (I didn't get proper confirmation of dates or times until the next day) a crew were going to descend on my house, filled with its mountain of rubbish we haven't gotten around to taking to the rubbish tip yet, and mail piles full of letters dating back possibly two years, inhabited by a slightly overweight single mum with terrible teeth, and expect to film something that Australians would actually want to watch. I don't know if there is a person in the world capable of that level of magic. They wanted to film me and Miss K interacting as part of some action shots as well, and the thought crossed my mind to just make her do the entire interview on my behalf, given she is never at a loss for words, and she knows she is the most fabulous person in the world, but I figured they probably wouldn't think that idea was as awesome as I did. So I set about panicking.

I spent the next three days trying to clean the house, while trying not to laugh, cry and throw up all at the same time. I called family members, I went to my blogging friends, I even got on Google trying to find something to calm my ever increasing nerves. I made note of the fact that you shouldn't wear red, black or white on television, as none of those colours are flattering apparently. I also found out that you should wear blue because it's the best colour for creating a healthy looking complexion. This caused a new panic for me because I own a total of one blue t-shirt and it is covered in permanent ink. Not exactly the image I wanted to convey as a blogger/mum who has her shit together in her own mind but nowhere else. Thanks to Google I also discovered there is no diet or exercise plan that helps you lose the equivalent of a small child from your behind in three days (thanks scientists).  I was contacted by the producer who was actually going to be running the circus, and I'm sure he immediately regretted contacting me when the barrage of questions came, especially the one where I admitted that I do not actually own a single item of make up at all. (I am sure that by admitting that fact on such a public forum I am now going to lose my female card any day now.) He did his best to reassure me, and was kind enough not to laugh at my increasing mania.

The day before the interview, I was taking a short break cleaning up the many piles of junk which have accumulated on any and all available surfaces, when another email came through. Before I even opened it, I sensed that I already knew what it was going to be, and sure enough, it was from the original producer who I had spoken to on Monday, telling me that unfortunately they had to pull the story because there were issues with another part of it. I sat for a second waiting for the disappointment to come, but all I could feel was relief. I was relieved that I could stop cleaning, I was relieved that I didn't have to feel ashamed because I don't wear makeup, I was relieved I didn't have to worry about exactly how fat I would look on a wide screen television, and I was relieved I wasn't going to be famous. (OK I wasn't really expecting two minutes of screen time on one current affairs show to really be my ticket to the big league, but fifteen seconds of fame is still fifteen seconds of fame.)

It has occurred to me over the three years that I have been the proud owner of Searching for Sanity that what I originally thought I wanted with the fame, the recognition and the book deal, isn't actually what I want at all. What I really want is what I have right now. A forum to place all the crazy stuff that floats around in my head, and a handful of loyal (if very quiet) readers who have found this place, liked the look of all the madness, and just made themselves at home on my lumpy couch.  With fame and/or recognition comes expectations, and expectations mean work. I am just too lazy for all of that stuff, and that isn't about to change. I like that to you guys I am just words on a page, and the occasional weird picture. I like that my mum is still my biggest fan, and I can always tell when she's visited my site because it shows up in my stats that someone googled the blog name, despite the fact that if she just typed the first three letters into the address line up the top it would come straight up. So for now, and possibly forever I will remain almost famous, but as long as I have this place and you guys, that is the best thing to be, so thank you.

I know a lot of my blogger friends and possibly some of you who don't have your own websites have actually gotten past the scheduling part of getting onto TV, and have actually managed to get their mugs onto the screen, so if any of you have stories of your fifteen minutes of fame, I'd love to hear them. Let me live vicariously through you guys please, I promise I'll totally be your biggest fan.

Why I love blogging

It is so hard to believe that this little blog is just over a year old. To think this all started with a way for me to pass information on to Miss K's dad without having to actually talk to him. In the past 13 months it has grown into so much more for me. It has grown into something that saves my sanity, gives me a creative outlet, and also allows me to make people laugh, and for me that is a big thing. You see in my family I am the clown. It has become my job to cheer people up when they are sad or angry, and over the years it has just become second nature. To the point that I can rarely take anything seriously for more than a few minutes at a time. This is also a trait I have passed on to my lovely daughter, and she is carrying the torch honorably.

But the other beautiful thing about this blog is how it has connected me to the rest of the world. Sadly over the years I have isolated myself from a lot of the people who made up my life before Miss K was born. It's the same old story, they went their way, I went mine and these days we smile if we pass in the street or post the occasional comment on a Facebook status. Very few of them know that Miss K has a speech impediment, that I have dated various versions of my father over and over again, that I came dangerously close to becoming an alcoholic. But thanks to the wonderful world of blogging I have met so many wonderful and supportive people through their own blogs. Some of them read this blog, others always reply to my comments whenever I write on their posts, some answer my questions on the Bloggy Moms website. But even though we all come from different states or countries, with different tastes and opinions, we all have one huge thing in common. We all share our lives over the internet.

It may sound incredibly petty or like a sign of low self esteem, but I love to hear about the day to day problems of the people I follow. It is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one on this planet who has absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing here. Thanks to writers like the Pintester and the lovely ladies over at Pinstrosity I know I am only one of hundreds of inept crafters in the world. Thanks to the beautiful and ever inspirational Corrie over at Retro Mummy I know that I can survive being a mother of one because this woman does the same thing with four more children than I will ever have. And thanks to women like Jamie over at Being positive with a depressive soul I know I am not the only one who some days looks in the mirror and wonders why the hell I even bother.

You see behind all of the jokes and the pretty pictures we all post day after day we are all still very human. What you see on these blogs is just a small snap shot of the world around us, carefully chosen by us so as to reveal enough about us so you get some idea of who you are spending your time reading, but not too much that you show up on our doorstep with a bouquet of flowers (or God forbid an axe.)  There are days where the jokes I tell on here hide very real pain that I just cannot bear writing down, as if that would suddenly make everything real. And there are also days where I reveal something on this blog and then panic because I'm terrified I have just turned every single one of my readers against me with my honesty.

I guess there is something about writing these blogs that non bloggers possibly won't be able to understand. In between the words on these websites are tiny parts of ourselves, a fingerprint of our minds if you like. This blog is as real and precious to me as the memories I make with my little girl. And if anyone ever came here criticising my writing or my stories or even my life, I think it would hurt as much as if anyone told me my daughter was ugly. Luckily for me everyone who has ever contacted me has been nothing but supportive and helpful, but there is always the distinct possibility that someone somewhere is going to try to put you down. And the bigger your blog gets, the larger your audience and the higher the statistic that some of your readers aren't going to be afraid to call you mean names. Day after day I read blog posts from some of my favourite writers trying to defend their work, their website or their lifestyle, as if it needed justifying simply because they made it public.

So right now I make a pledge to refuse to justify my life to my audience. That doesn't mean it will stop the haters from hatin' but hopefully it will make my life a little bit easier to put up here. After all this blog would be nothing if it wasn't the truth.

Ok so that's enough serous stuff for now. Just to lighten the mood I will now show you a picture of a meal I made for my little sister one day just to make her smile.

Yep, it's a happy ham steak plate. A cock-eyed happy ham steak. Why is everything I make cock-eyed?

And finally, I should say thank you. Thank you to my family for not shouting at me every time I put them in my writing, thank you to all of the lovely bloggers who have reached out to me over the past year, and thank you to my wonderful audience. Even though most of you are waaay too quiet for my liking, I know that you are out there and it is because of you that I come back every single day to humiliate myself just that little bit more. Isn't that what friends are for??

One day I'm gonna be famous

So when I started this blog, I had grand visions of becoming an iconic blogger, possibly one who would be featured on the Ellen DeGeneres show, because she seems to have her finger on the pulse of everything that is cool on the internet. I dreamed of being interviewed for various magazines and newspapers (under the heading sexy mama becomes internet sensation overnight), and being asked to guest blog for other famous bloggers. However, it has now been 3 months since I started this blog, and the cracks are starting to show in my fantasy.

There are several flies in the ointment of my dreams here, the first and biggest one being that it is very hard to get famous without masses of self promotion, which is something I loathe to do. I was always brought up to never big note myself, as modesty was a more attractive feature than arrogance. To date, I haven't even told all of my friends that I have a blog, and although I have added the link to this site on my Facebook page, I did it in my information section, and it tends to disappear after all of my likes and interests, to a part of the page I don't think anyone really ever looks at unless they've forgotten your email address and need to email you a copy of the funniest LOL cat EVER!!!!

The other problem, and this one is the hardest one to overcome is that I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THIS BLOG IS ANY GOOD. One of the problems that comes with the lack of self promotion is that you don't have many people available to give you constructive criticism or tell you where you may have failed with a certain post, joke or pop culture reference. Of course I ask my family to read my posts on regular occasions, and while they are my biggest fans (the compliment I get the most is you're an idiot), I have never been able to fully take their compliments as I can't tell if they're just being nice because I know where they live. My big sister has been the person who prefers to discuss my writing style and content of my blogs with me, and to date she is the best editor I could have asked for. (And no I'm not just saying that so that she'll keep saying nice things to me.) Whenever my posts are starting to become too mopey, or she thinks I'm becoming too distanced from reality, she is the first one to come to me and offer advice.

One thing I really struggle with when writing this blog is I still haven't decided what kind of blog it is. I'm not enough of an expert on anything for this to be an instructional blog, and I've tried to make it a journal style blog, but even I get bored with reading about my own life after a while. If I had the kind of life where Miss K and I did exciting things like explore jungles or travel to the far corners of the earth, then a journal style blog could be very interesting, but given that the highlight of our day yesterday was that my cousin bought her 7 month old daughter over for a visit, and Miss K was terrified of her, then it doesn't make for very compelling reading. I actually spend a lot of time reading other people's blogs and researching interesting topics on the internet just to see if I can find anything that jumps out at me and says DO THIS! but the thing I notice most is that the really popular blogs are several years old, or in some cases established by already famous people who aren't afraid to tell people how wonderful they are, and have legions of fans ready to follow them into the wilderness that is a blank website waiting to be filled with humour or instructions.

So for now it looks like this blog will remain an obscure drop of water in the giant ocean that is the internet. If any of you my wonderful readers feel like taking on some of the promotion for me, then feel free to invite all of your friends to come check me out. Or if there is anything in particular you'd like me to write about, please drop a line in the comments, after all this blog is for my audience so if there are any holes in topics you feel I'd be able to fill, please let me know and I'll do my best to oblige.