Not an Earth Mother
One of the joys of writing fiction is that I can pretend to be good at things which, in real life, I will never excel at. I can write a character who sews beautiful clothes, or has a green thumb, or does sums in record time. I can bask, for a little while, in the reflected glow of their talent. Of course it takes research and some careful writing to make it believable, but some things you need only to hint at. Gaps give readers space...
Daffodil Day – For someone I know
It’s Daffodil Day – a big day on the Sydneymum calendar because as women and mothers, we all know someone who is battling, has battled or is living with cancer. We have rallied around Daniella’s Facebook campaign and today we rally around a guest post, written by a wonderful Sydney mum, Carla Jassen. ‘A Dragon Fighting Warrior Princess’ – The true story of how I became a dragon warrior princess The...
Help Your Kids Understand Real Not Fake News
Real News v’s Fake News? I had an interesting conversation at the dinner table last night with my oldest daughter. The news was on in the background until we sat down to dinner. She pipes up and tells me ‘North Korea is going to bomb Australia’. What?! I didn’t think she was paying attention to the news because she was busy playing. I had to correct her and say ‘no, that’s not true’ and...
7 Tips For Healthy Eating Habits
Healthy eating habits? Most kids in developed countries currently consume nearly 90% of their daily calories from animal products and processed foods! This can make it very difficult to consume enough fruits and vegetables needed for optimal health. Did you know eating five serves of different colour vegetables daily can help combat against chronic diseases? Diseases which begin in childhood, though we may not see their effects until...
13 Sydney services that de-clutter, organise and remove overwhelm.
“Is there like a service, that comes into a messy house with an exhausted mother and just organises everything and cleans and helps figure out how to make things work well and look nice?” In Sydney? Yep! Here are 13. A Sydney mother recently asked for help on a Facebook forum and she took the thoughts right out of my head. “Is there like a service, that comes into a messy house with an exhausted mother and just organises everything...
What you need to know about Instagram
The spread of harmful ideas is nothing new, so when two friends recently shared interesting articles about the perils of social media, it sparked me to write this week’s post and revisit some of the themes from the documentary ‘Screenagers’. I can’t think of a more contentious issue for parents now than social media and our children’s use of it. If you watched ‘Screenagers’ you may have walked away with a feeling of dread – the...
13 Reasons Why and the Acrobatics of Parenting
There are many, many yoga related topics I could write about. But today my mind was hijacked by the controversial Netflix series “Thirteen Reasons Why” and writing about what true core is seemed really unimportant today. For those of you who don’t know, the show is about a teenager who decides to take her own life. It’s a controversial show because some say that it normalises suicide, and even makes it glamorous. Certainly, I...
Tasty Chicken Teriyaki – Monday’s recipe
Tasty Teriyaki Chicken with Hokkien Noodles Ingredients (serves four) 2 cloves garlic, peeled & finely grated 1 knob ginger, peeled & finely grated 3 ½ tbs salt-reduced soy sauce 2 ½ tbs honey 3 tbs warm water 700 g free range chicken thighs, chopped into 2 cm pieces 370g Hokkien noodles (Note: using extra noodles will alter the flavour) 1 tsp vegetable oil 2 carrots, peeled & cut into thin discs 1 bunch spring...
My Low-down on Screenagers
Monday night’s screening of the documentary ‘Screenagers’ was a huge success for Sydneymum. We thank all you who joined us and hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. It was a lovely opportunity for Sharon and I to meet some of you, our readership, and get some feedback on other ideas for future Sydneymum events. ‘Screenagers’, what was it all about? As the title says it was a documentary that ‘probes into the vulnerable...
Kids are our future: Education is important
Kids do notice what we do… Let me explain why I say that our children notice our actions; they emulate what we do even if we don’t think they do. Last week I attended my graduation ceremony for my Masters in Education. It has taken me 3 years to complete – 3 fun, satisfying and intellectually stimulating years. Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a walk in the park, there were many really late nights and many weekends spent at the...
