un-awesome

You know how some days you feel like it's barely worth chewing through the leather straps? And everything you touch turns to wet kitty poops?
And your internets won't work all day?
and then you're making miso soup and the boiling water breaks your mug with a crazy bang and slops water on your toes?
And you don't do up the the cap of your Diet Dr Pepper properly and it leaks all over your bed, through the duvet and onto the mattress?
And then you're in the bank and it turns out that Jack Layton died, and all that other stuff seems stupid and your heart is a little broken?
Today was like that.
I'll be back tomorrow, to show you my new shoes and this:

I heart Anthro

I love Anthropologie. But really, who doesn't?

In a super perfect world I would spend my days clad entirely in Anthro loveliness, and I would have expertly applied makeup and brushed hair. And I could fly. and I'd, say, fight crime?

In this world not so muchly. I haven't the cash. Or the superpowers.

But I can look and that's what I was doing this morning when I spotted this:

It's the Field Game Cardigan and it's $140. Which at my house is say, the phone bill. Anyway. I loved the cardi and I was super excited because this seemed really doable for me. I happen to have this top. And it's stripey!



I also happen to have the bag o' crocheted lace trim. I scored it at a church sale last spring. The bag was a whole 50 cents and it was being sold with the crochet hooks that had been used to make it. There was a LOT of it. We're talking hours and hours and hours of work to make. It makes me feel kind of weirdly philosophical about all kinds of things, like the work that women do. And the things that are left behind, and their value to other people. Which is big stuff for a bag O' trim.

ANYWAY.
I was inspired to make this:

I sewed the trim down with a zig zag stitch and added occasional pleaty bits. And voila! Quick, simple, instant gratification.
Here it is on:

Mama Sing The Blues

I should really preface this post with a note about just how badly I sing.
I sing badly. Really, really badly (at some point I will have to tell you about Japan and the Karaoke bar FROM HELL).
So, singing is not one of my talents, and the lack might be genetic. My mum also has more enthusiasm than ability when it comes to carrying a note but, rather marvelously, that doesn't stop her from singing A LOT. Not in public exactly, but in the car, in supermarkets, on a stroll. Any time something comes on the radio that she likes she will sing along, or hum if she doesn't know the words. As a kid I found it a bit excruciating ("Mum! People can HEAR you!") but that's because I was STUPID.
Now I absolutely adore it.
If I am lucky enough to be in the same place as my mum when the opening bars of Love Is In The Air peel out I know that there will be singing; and possibly even a subtle-but-jaunty hip swing.
Mostly what I love is my mum's ability to take unselfconscious pleasure in the moment.

Today as I poked around the Dollarama looking for exactly the right shade of "silk" flower (more on that later) I heard the opening ooooh oooh oh's of Kelly Clarkson's Because of You, my ears perked up and by the time the chorus kicked in I was warbling "because of YOOOOOOOOU" under my breath. It's not something I normally do, nor is La Clarkson usually my cup o' tea musically, and when I caught myself doing it I gave some thought to stopping instantly (for the sake of humanity) but I didn't. I just hummed along more quietly.
It wasn't until I got home (flowers in bag, song still in my head) that I realised how much closer to my mama it had made me feel. Like a genetic hug, delivered all the way from Ireland.
I now can't wait to hear my Bear whisper "Maaaawm! People can HEAR you" in mortified undertones. It will mean I am a proper mama.

Here's a picture of my beautiful Ma, just 'cause.

Well Hello, Come On In...

Hi folks, come in, cop a squat, score a cookie and welcome to my blog.
Wondering why I have started a brand new blog when I already write for weebabystuff, and theoretically also for Curbly but can barely manage a post a month? Oh, and when my child is in the process of throwing off the shackles of the morning nap? And I have a plotted- but-as-yet-unfinished novel slowly scratching it's way to the surface in the roughly 10 minutes a week I can devote to it?
Yeah... me too.
But I have an answer and it might even make sense.
See the title? Luck and Bliss? I have those.
Sometimes they're a little less obvious to me than I would like (like today, when I am wearing regurgitated banana goo).
So, I want to try and focus on what I have.
I want to document what is good, whine about what is not, score a little support for what is hard and share some of the luck and bliss. I do hope you'll be joining me.
Chaste, friendly kisses (with hardly any tongue),

Me.