Joining the Operation and Accepting an Award

Once in a while other, more interesting blog writers than myself come up with an idea that strikes a cord with others. This time a really wonderful writer, Holly over at Mama Dearest/Domestic Goddess, has come up with what she has decided to call " Operation Think Happy ". What is this operation, you ask ? Well, its basically just a promise to make regular posts about things that have made you happy; Holly is going to make her list every Thursday and i'm going to ( try ) and make mine every weekend. What better way to finish a week than to look back at the things that made you smile over the preceding 7 days ?

* My post pregnancy boobies - ok sure they sometimes get tingly, hard as a rock and leaky, but boy do they look good!

* Flynns new found smiles - my boy gave us his first smiles this week. He does this little smirk thing out of one side of his mouth and then throws his head back and has a huge open mouth, like he's laughing with out sound. Too, too sweet....

*Caramel Tim Tams, straight outta the fridge - chocolate coated chocolate biscuits with a chewy caramel centre. Yes please.... a little bit of happiness at my finger tips.

* Black shorts - or, more precisely, finally finding a pair of black shorts that were the right length, right price and that flattered my mummy tummy.

* Getting out of bed to find that Mr Gil has sorted all the dirty laundry - and was in the process of washing it all too. What a good fiance/daddy!

* " Burn Your Name ", by Powderfinger - still absolutely loving this song and everytime i hear it it makes me smile....

* A bbq at my parents place - just us and them. I'm happy to admit that Mr Gil and i get along really well with my parents. So much so i think we can say we actually LIKE hanging out with them ( O.M.G ... is that wrong of me ? )

So thats my first contribution to " Operation Think Happy ". And now, onto accepting an award which was given to me by Suzanne Icognito at Incognito Soapbox Confessions. Apparently she thinks i'm a " Kreativ Blogger " :

I dont know how " kreativ " i am - lets face it, i'm not all that good at coming up with new and exciting blog projects or operations of my own - but hey, if she wants to give me an award i will gladly accept it! There is also a meme that is supposed to be done when accepting the award - i have to share 7 things you guys dont yet know about me. Even though that seems like an impossible task ( how long have i been writing this blog, and how much random crap have i already shared ? ) i'll give it a shot. Here goes:

1. I like my tuna sandwiches best when there kind of soggy. Dont drain all the brine or water from the tuna and add lots and lots of avocado!

2. I have a scar in the centre of my hairline from walking into a door when i was little. No, i wasnt drunk - i was only a toddler and learning how to walk and, you know, i lost control and crashed into the hinge of the door. Ouchy McGouchy!

3. I may be 26 but i still love " Sesame Street ". In fact, because its Sunday afternoon and there is zero else to watch on tv, " Sesame Street " happens to be on right now.

4. I think i have too much body hair for a woman. Seriously, i'm one of these poor unfortunate ladies who is a natural brunette and is sadly afflicted with dark body hair. I'm not exactly the bearded lady, but its enough to make me feel decidely unfeminine sometimes...

And thats all i've got. Sorry Suzanne, but i seem to have exhausted my supply of random tidbits a long time ago!

Like An Australian Virgin

Do we really need politicians telling us what we should and shouldnt be doing with our sex lives? I only ask because in the past day we have had the leader of the Liberal party here in Australia saying that young women should remain virgins until theyre married. I mean i respect that he, just like everybody else, is allowed to express his opinion - but should politicians really be concerned with that kind of stuff when they could be worrying about roads and hospitals and schools and stuff ? And - should we care what they think ?

I think it is quite clear that i am NOT a virgin ( unless i'm like the second coming of Mary and my child is the second Immaculate Conception ). I am also NOT married ( yet ). So what is Tony Abbott, this aforementioned leader, think of me? Would he now think i'm some kind of whorish, slutty cretin ? Does the status of my virginity really speak to what kind of person i am ? I understand that he is the father of three teenage daughters and his opinion is probably based on what he would hope they are ( or arent, as it were ) doing - but then why has he directed this statement at all Australian women ? And - ahem - why wasnt it inclusive of Australian men?

He also admits to having " given up " his virginity before he was married so i want to ask why would he even bother publicly espousing this opinion when he cant even hold to the standard himself ? It reeks of hypocrisy, it opens him up to all kinds of criticism and i dont think its going to help him appeal to female voters anymore than he already does ( also being against abortion and gay marriage ). He already seems like he's on the very much conservative side, so giving an interview in a womens magazine where he decides he wants to tell women what to do with their bodies and sexuality only makes him less electable - to me anyways.

I suppose the politics of the man dont matter much to anyone who isnt an Australian voter - but what do you think ? Whatever your own opinions on the matter, do you think its right, or OK, for politicians to poke their noses into what is very much personal business or should they just stick to ( trying ) to run their countries?

O.M.G - Brangelina Are Breaking Up!

I know - how shocking? If i werent already happily attached this may have given me the perfect chance to get together with Brad and we could raise a rainbow family of our own ( but only if he shaves off that hideous beard - he looks like a lumberjack ).

Now that i have that very important news out of the way - the rest of my birthday turned out very well. I had a couple of spare hours up my sleeve alone with Flynn before Mr Gil got home and my family turned up, so we watched " Rent " on DVD. Despite the fact that some critics said the movie version is not all that good, " Rent " is my favourite musical and i really like the film. I threw it on and sung all the songs to Flynn ( in between feeds ) and danced him around the loungeroom when he got a little grizzly. So what if the musical subject matter includes such baby friendly topics as AIDS and drug addiction ? Its essentially a story about love and besides that singing to your child ( whether its nursery ryhmes or Top 40 stuff ) is engaging for them. I loved it!

I got quite a few nice presents ( DVD's , a book, a new wallet and some chocolates included... ) and my birthday dinner was fantastic. Mr Gil ended up making me butter chicken and it was just the right mix of saucy and spicy and yum... so yum that i ended up eating the leftovers for my lunch the next day. So i'm officially 26 now. One of my loyal readers ( you know, of the 3 of you... ) asked if i felt any older - i'm going to go with yes, but no.

How do i get yes, but no? Well i do feel older but i dont think it has all that much to do with having a birthday, and i dont necessarily think its older but rather i feel more mature. I think this whole " I actually feel like a proper grown up now " feeling has rather less to do with hitting age that is closer to 30 than it is to 20 and more to do with becoming a mother. You know - i'm partnered up, i have a small, wrinkly, but entirely gorgeous small person who relies on me for everything, i have a mortgage and a car loan and when my annual leave pay runs out we'll only have one income and few government benefits to live off until i go back to work. I mean, those are grown up concerns right?

If they dont qualify me as being almost entirely adult now, i shudder to think what you have to do to join the club.....

Happy Birthday - To Me!

Oh yea, thats right - go Amy, its your birthday.....

* Note * This is not my actual birthday cake - i just thought it was cute!

My 26th birthday to be precise, and my first as a mumma. So far its going well.... Mr Gil gave me my birthday present at 4am when Flynn woke up for a feed ( I gotta say it was a nice suprise to be spoilt in the middle of the night! ) and i'm a very lucky girl - my boys got me a Pandora bracelet! I dont know if Pandora is a big thing overseas but its pretty popular here. Basically its a completely personalised charm bracelet system, where you start off buying the base "snake chain " bracelet and then add on which ever charms you so desire. Mr Gil has bought me the silver version ( very cleverly knowing that i dont wear gold jewellery ) and had included two charms - an " M " bead ( for his first name... ) and an " F " bead for Flynn. Aww, my boys are two cute!

Flynn also decided to spoil me by going (almost) straight back to sleep after his 4am feed and then sleeping another 3 and half hours - which means i got around 7 hrs sleep over night ( score! ) and got to eat my breakfast and take a quick shower uninterrupted. Mr Gil claims this is because he had a little father-to-son chat with Flynn and told him he had to be good on mummys birthday. Which he has - he's only just fallen asleep after 4 and half hours awake, but it was relatively calm awake time, so i truely am getting a good little boy today.

The rest of my immediate family are coming around for birthday cake this afternoon after Mr Gil gets home from work. Its only going to be a small gathering but i'm looking forward to it - i mean yes i'll be getting cake and birthday presents but its nice to have visitors when i've been spending the majority of my days with just a little person for company ( note that by " little person " i mean my baby. I havent recently acquired my own dwarfed person ). And then Mr Gil is cooking me some Indian food for dinner and doing the dishes to boot - what a guy!

I guess we'll find out tomorrow how the rest of my 26th ended up....

Sleep, My Pretty, Sleep

Ok, so i may have spoke a little too soon in my last " mummy " update. Yes i said i wasnt finding it too rough YET - yea, well, yet arrived last week. However, i think i still had it pretty good in comparison to a lot of other new mums...

See what happened was - Flynn decided he wanted to start what is known as " cluster feeding ". So instead of being awake/having a feed/going back to sleep Flynn was waking in the morning and then having a feed - and staying awake, wanting another feed around 45 minutes later and then still staying awake. He was averaging four feeds in four hours of awake time and then he would fall asleep for maybe 2 hrs and want to do the whole feed/cuddle/grizzle/feed repeat thing again. My only blessing is that he was doing this during the day time, when i am supposed to be awake anyway, instead of at night. At night he was sleeping for 5 or 6 straight hours before wanting one feed and then back to sleep. Thank. Gawd.

But i'm not going to pretend the cluster feeding thing was easy, even during the day. Hell no - it was exhausting. I mean imagine if you will a four to five hour period where you had a baby on your boob ( ok, sorry, theres no other way to put it ) for 25 minutes and then the baby wanted to snuggle ( which is lovely ) but then they wanted to grizzle ( which is not so much lovely ) and then within the completion of an hour he was back on your boob. I couldnt do anything other than sit on the lounge and watch midday television - " Ellen ", " Dr Phil ", " Oprah ", " The View "... take your pick .Crazy as it sounds i wanted to get some housework done, which i couldnt because i cant wash dishes or hang the clean clothes on the line with one hand. I'm sure as my mummy caper continues i'll develop this skill but right now its sorely lacking.

Also - i couldnt help but feel like a dairy cow.

But now that we've had a cool change in the weather the cluster feeding thing has backed off a bit and, so far, it hasnt been replaced with anything else too strange.

Yet.....

A Sad State of Underwears

No, i'm not talking about me - although lately all i get to wear is nursing bras and cute stretch cotton knickers ( shut up! They're comfy.... ). Nope, i'm talking about what i assume is the universal sad state of mens underwear.

What is up with men keeping their underwear until its literally falling apart? I've folded quite a few baskets of washing lately and i've come across at least 3 pairs of Mr Gil undies that are in dire need of throwing out. You know the ones : i like to call them the " Hole-y Undies ". Not because they're similar to the particular y-fronts that Jesus favoured back in the day, but because they're full of holes. And not jus the holes for your legs to go into, no - i'm talking about extra holes in the crotch, or in the behind, or the side seam coming apart. I dont know how you boys can wear them, what with the risk of inappropriate bits and peices falling out; and if your junk coming "untrunked" is not the issue, then why arent you just going commando?

And i know its not just Mr Gil. When i was a teenager and made to fold the households washing as my share of the chores, my dad and my brother did the same thing - insisted on wearing underwear that was just barely holding together until the point that some kindly woman in their lives ( wife, mother, sister, whoever it may be ) decided to throw them away. I mean the typical woman gets a even the whiff of a seam coming apart and her knickers are straight in the garbage. But a dude? He insists that the holes mean the undies are only just being " worn in " and thats the way they are most comfortable.

Or at least the men that i've washed for do. Please tell me its not jusy them....

Oh.My.God - There's Poo On My Carpet!

Ok, firstly, let me just get the whole post title explanation out of the way. Its kind of self-explanatory really - theres poo on my carpet. Why? Because my adorable 11 day old son shot liquid poop at me. It was kind of horrifying at the time: there i am, changing his nappy and then i hear this telltale squelchy fart sound and.... poo shoot! There it was, pumpkin yellow liquid poo squirted straight of his little bum and i'd only just managed to jump out of the way. Which meant that i was spared a spray all over my shirt, but also that the offending poo ended up on the carpet. It was horrifying at the time but now its hilarious. Seriously, imagine ( if you will ) seeing something similar on " Funniest Home Videos ".... yep, hilarious.

Ooh, also, i got thrown up on for the first time today. Ace!

Aside from these little misadventures, things are going quite well with mini Flynn-y and I. I'd heard all the horror stories about getting zero sleep and high-pitched sqalling crying that never ends... but i havent had much of that. We had a horror evening last night - to the point where i got all teary and felt like the worst mum ever because i couldnt figure out what was up with my baby - and i think he's having an early growth spurt because he's had a period everyday for 3 days where he feeds, sleeps for around 40 minutes and then feeds again, but on the whole the first ( almost ) 2 weeks have been a little easier than i thought. Not that i'm gliding through motherhood like some kind of superwoman either - my boobs are sore and heavy sometimes, i havent had a proper time-to-myself-shower since the birth and my back is killing me by the end of the day - i'm just saying that it hasnt been the nightmare some women made it out to be.

But God love those poor new mums who do have a rough time of it - i get a cranky crying bub for 4 hours and i get upset, so anybody whose doing it tougher than that gets a round of applause from me...

2009: A Year in Review, Insomniatic Style

Alright, so now that i have caught up reading other peoples year in review posts, its my turn to post my best, worsts and favourites for the past year. I havent listed all the same categories as last year, and have thrown in a couple of new categories, so bearing in mind that when i say "best " i mean " My favourite " not the technical best; and when i say " worst " i mean " totally poo " . Also, all items are listed in no particular order.....

BEST FILMS:
1. " Inglourious Basterds " - whats not to love ? Its vintage wacky Tarantino, its good vs evil and Eli Roth ? Hella gorgeous.
2. " The Boy In Striped Pyjamas " - ok, yes, another Nazi themed film, but this one is rather more poignant than it is violent. I alternated between sadness and anger during this film, but the performance of both little boys was what made this film really special.
3. " Grand Torino " - Mr Gil and i saw this on our second date, so that alone makes it memorable, however it makes the list simply because its Clint Eastwood at his absolute best. Director, actor, composer - his touch is all over it.
4. " Wolverine " - anyone who is deriding me for this choice can go jump in a lake. I love me a superhero film and i love me some Hugh Jackman, so why wouldnt this film make my list ?
5. " The Proposal " - i dont normally rate 'chick flicks ' so high but this one was suprisingly enjoyable. Ryan Reynolds could just be my new favourite cute/funny/goofy dude....

AND THE WORST ?
" The Hangover " - i've chosen this as my worst film for the year not because it was bad necessarily .... but because it was disappointing. So many people told me it was the new " The 40 Year Old Virgin "; that it was hilariously funny; the funniest movie they'd seen in years. And then Mr Gil and i watched it last week ( so it only just makes 2009 ... ) and it was just - meh. To be quite honest, I didnt see what all the fuss was about.
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BEST SONGS:
1. " Breakeven " by The Script - a soulful, sad, sexy pop song by some cute Irish lads. It got played to death on radio over here, but rather than grate on my nerves, i just liked it more and more.
2. " The Fixer " by Pearl Jam - yea, yea, yea! This has been my sing-along-song for the past few months ( not that i know all the words.... ). Its the one that comes on the car radio, i turn up the volume and rock out at the traffic lights. Every list needs one of these songs, and Eddie Vedder and the boys get that honor this year.
3. " Last Day On Earth " by Kate Miller-Hiedke - this is an exquisite, melancholy love song. It initially came to my attention because it was attached to an episode of my favourite soap ( hello, " Neighbours"! ) but then it gained radio airplay and i totally fell in love with it.
4. " Like It Loud " by Cassie Davis - another Australian artist, this time with a perfectly crafted party song. Not that i've done much partying this year, but this was my favourite song to get my happy face going....
5. " Burn Your Name " by Powderfinger - this is officially my song of the summer, and reminds me of both my fiance and now my beautiful son. It doesnt hurt that its by one of my favourite bands either.

AND THE WORST ?
" Pokerface " by Lady Gaga tied with " Down " by Jay Shawn - it is no secret that i just cant stand Lady Gaga, so its no suprise i'm going to choose one of her songs to be my least favourite of the year. " Pokerface " happens to be the one that annoys me the most ( pa-pa-pa-pa-pokerface! Pa-pa-pa-please! ). Tied for this incredible honor is " Down " - pretty much because its just been totally overplayed and its a weak Backstreet Boys impression to begin with ( seriously, check out the clip. Someone totally wants to be in a boy band ).
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BEST BOOK:
" Eat.Pray.Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert - ok, so i'm a little late jumping on this particular bandwagon - you know, seeing as Oprah had been praising the book in 2008 - but this was just a really great book. It might seem kind of hippy-dippy or hokey-spiritual to some, but when i was 8 months pregnant it was an inspiration ( woman divorces; falls into depression; decides to take a year off and visit Italy, India and Indonesia; ultimately finds redemption and happiness ). It was - is - nice to think that if we want something bad enough and strive to reach for it, we can have happiness, for ourselves and others.

FAVOURITE TV SHOW:
" The Big Bang Theory " - this was on last years list, and its still my favourite. Seriously, Leonard and Penny are my new Ross and Rachel - and Sheldon is just in a league of his own.

BEST MOMENT FOR ME, PERSONALLY:
27.12.2009, the birth of my son - the proposal of marriage by Mr Gil was pretty damn sweet, and had my son arrived on his due date, the engagement would have made the top spot. However, seeing as Flynn decided to arrive 2 weeks early, making him a 2009 baby and not 2010 like he was supposed to be, meeting my little man and the making of our little family gets to be #1.

And that be it. Last year i included a list of best albums, but i had to leave them off this year because, sadly, i havent purchased too many actual albums this year. I have 3 or 4 that i've been meaning to buy but just havent got around to it, and now that i'm going to be home quite a bit with a sleeping baby i'll have ample opportunity to sit down and actually LISTEN to a whole cd at a time, so look out for a " best albums " list in my 2010 countdown....

We're off

Welcome to the site. This is a rather ambitious translation project, which will hopefully one day be a complete chronological translation of the Italian series Paperinik New Adventures, starting with issue #1.

It should be mentioned that even before issue #1, there was a 3-part miniseries which introduced many important elements of the series. However, seeing as these were never released in my country (Denmark) I will be skipping them.

The very first issue HAS been translated though, by another fan, and can be found at: http://immaginario.net/pikappa/index/traduzioni/ (The issue numbered 0)

That issue sets the stage for things to come, but as the series was still finding its legs at this point, you shouldn’t judge the whole series based on the first issue. I tend to think of #1 – Shadows on Venus as the point where it really got good.

Which is where we start, so it all works out.

Hope you enjoy.

- Birch