paper toys

Paper stuff - top of the list is spongebob and a pineapple house (perfect pastime for Sponky), but if you scroll further down the downloads, there are 3D paper puzzles - print them, build them and then attempt to solve them (perhaps a pursuit for Betty Sue).

coffee loophole: closing

djbebe's local coffee shop used to have flat whites for 80c less than a latte, while still making the flat white on mostly milk. djbebe switched from latte to flat white to take advantage of this loophole and has since been saving 80c per day while enjoying something close to her coffee of choice. The coffee shop staff recently underwent barista training, with no discernible change in coffee quality - burnt milk, half-filled cups and wildly fluctuating coffee strength all remain. (Unfortunately it is the only coffee shop within reasonable distance.) But now, several weeks later, they are changing the flat white to be more like a real flat white so djbebe may have to go back to lattes and be charged the full cappuccino price. Damn baristas.

speaking of geeks

An opportunity to wax lyrical for djbebe and her fellow femme-geeks. Suggested topics include female geek bonding and feminist commentary on geek culture.

djbebe's feminist spines have recently been made to bristle by reading some of 1978's Superwoman by Shirley Conran (actually reading this article I feel a bit better but the book made me cringe) which outlines techniques for various domestic duties, but mostly cleaning. For example it helps to have a routine - clean the kitchen on Monday, fireplaces on Tuesday, bedrooms Wednesday, bathroom on Saturday etc - of course if you "work", it may help to share these duties with a friend, but try to find one that doesn't talk too much. But of course if you are "working", make sure you count the real cost including make-up and hair which you wouldn't bother with if you were lounging around the house with the kids.

Superwoman opens with the phrase "life is too short to stuff a mushroom". The sentiment being that in order to have the bare minimum of clean house, happy husband, healthy children (career optional) you just have to eliminate some of the luxuries including manicured nails, spotless walls, and, it seems, stuffed mushrooms. djbebe disagrees: if you just re-prioritize, you can have your mushrooms and stuff them too. Sometimes a stuffed mushroom is at the top of the list. So can one femme-geek have it all - a fulfilling relationship with one's ipod, the occasional stuffed mushroom, as well as a career and optional partner that fit in with all of the above?

advice for the home-maker

• if one has a toupe that is prone to shedding, it's best to remove it before preparing food
• if one has numb lips (for example, one has just returned from the dentist), one should use a pincushion
  

toons at work

Darth 'Tater and a Spud Trooper arrived at work the other day, a gift from a colleague's wife who is an avid Star Trek fan. Around the corner is Spongebob, a favourite of our friend Sponky. This mix of 'toons and sci-fi is almost too much for djbebe. And the other problem djbebe has is that the Star Wars garb of the Messrs Potato Heads almost precludes the rearranging of their facial features, which is their reason for being. Or at least their reason for being entertaining. (One nice touch though is that the Spud Trooper's weapon of choice is a potato masher.) djbebe took Darth's face mask off and put his nose on while the colleague wasn't looking, and almost got in trouble. Now djbebe makes a point of rearranging them every morning before the colleague gets to work.

And one last P. Head link, the family reunion.

number one quilt

djbebe made a quilt for her number one nephew (who is now 8 weeks old). Machine-pieced and hand-quilted, using a Japanese sashiko design. Gender-neutral colours because that was a surprise.