What I've Been... Almond butter explosions, Fringe Furniture and new rides

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Eating... Brioche french toast with rhubarb and ricotta. What now? Obviously I didn't make it. Lee and I had a breakfast date to A Boy Named Sue and god knows I can't go past french toast EVER. It was gooooood. They don't have high chairs so I was eating it one handed and wrestling a hyped-up toddler determined to empty the sugar bowl on the floor. It was still totally worth it.

Reading... Last Man in Tower by Aravind Adiga. He also wrote The White Tiger, which I think won the Booker Prize a while ago. That book was like a punch in the face while eating garlic naan, but in a good way. This one is a bit slower, but it creeps up until you find yourself wanting to go to bed at 7.15 to read it.  And it totally makes me want to go back to India one day. God, that place is crazy.

Cleaning... An entire jar of almond butter out of my handbag. Last Friday we went to playgroup as usual, and after we left I stuck my hand in my handbag and pulled it out covered in sticky brown gunk. My first though was POO! before I realised it didn't stink like Archie's usual baby turds. It was, in fact, a jar of almond butter that had somehow come unscrewed in my bag and emptied over everything. And god knows I have a ridiculous amount of crap in my bag (this morning when I was stuck in traffic I cleaned out three bottles of bubble solution, a harmonica, a toy hammer, four unmatched baby socks, all the usual diary-keys-wallet crap, a mini first aid kit and a very old cheese stick that concerningly still looked edible).

And so obviously, I just cleaned off the important stuff then ignored the situation until I got home six hours later and it had concealed into a solid musty lump of toys, tissues, lip gloss and hairpins stuck together with almond butter. High five, mama.

Visiting... Fringe Furniture. On that same Friday as the above incident, we went to Abbotsford Covent with my mate Sam to visit another friend who was managing the Fringe Furniture exhibition. Lee put a piece in Fringe Furniture a few years ago, and it always has cool stuff made by super-talented peeps. I like that because most of the stuff is not really commercially viable, there is more of a focus on awesome techniques and well-designed pieces.

Archie loved the Play Cube by Little Green Room, a plywood cubby-type-thing which I realised is actually designed and built by one of my old lecturers. Very cool.

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I was pretty impressed with the series of gorgeous hand-veneered skateboards by a designer whose card I promptly lost. They would look great up on a wall as an art piece.

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Excited about... My brother has bought a new house not far from our new house, which is RAD because we can ride to each other's houses and I can eat pizza with him and his flatmates and he can come to our house and do the gardening. Yippee!

Building... Speaking of new houses, Archie has some new digs and a new ride he would like to show you. Check out the awesome dashboard detailing...

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What I've Been...

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Thinking... About our business. Lee and I have so many ideas but suck at following through with anything. We tend to go crazy with sketching and ideas and making random prototypes, then fizzle out when we get to the stage of actually promoting anything or contacting stockists. SO. I am going to get all businesslady and crack the whip and get sorted. I am getting our heinous website fixed, sorting out some sort of branding and actually getting this baby making moolah.

I've been reading the Biz Ladies stuff and the whole CWC website to help find the next step. I have applied for a couple of designy markets, which will give us a deadline to aim for and therefore help kick our asses into gear.

Lee is so freaking talented and clever, and we have a fully-stocked woodworking workshop, so there really is no excuse to not be making awesome things that people want to buy. Thumbs up for getting out of my comfort zone, yo.

Enjoying... The SUNSHINE. God, how much better is everything when the sun is shining? It is impossible to feel bad when it's warm and sunny and happy outside. Archie can go pants-free (his default outfit) and get his bum out and about; stuff is growing in the garden; and I don't need to wear thermals to screw on roof sheets on our new shed.

Wondering about... The whole girls-with-tools  thing. On Saturday, I was in the front yard of our new house, wearing jeans, workboots, a work shirt and a toolbelt, demolishing the front fence and digging holes. I reckon every second person who walked past - and there were quite a few people, as it was the first warm day in aaaaages - made a comment.

One guy said "You are very good with a hammer!". One guy just looked at me and laughed. Two older men stopped in front of the house and watched me for a while. Um, awkward much? It wasn't a sexy thing, or an objectification thing, because I looked like crap and was fully covered up. I just know that if it was a guy doing the same thing, no one would have batted an eyelid.

This probably makes me sound like a massive wanker, or really up myself, or super-sensitive, or whatever. But I just know that it was weird.

Impressed by... My dad and my brother completed the Kokoda Trail last week. They got back on Saturday, several kilos lighter, more tanned and slightly gutsier. The photos were super spectacular and the whole trip sounded insanely tough.

So I think I have to wait a few weeks before going back to whinging about my sore hip and back in front of them.

Pondering... Facebook. I do love social media for the way I can stalk keep in touch with everyone. But between facey, Twitter, Instagram and this here blog, it is kind of overwhelming. Instagram and the twits are by far my favourite mediums. I know that I don't HAVE to keep updated with all of it, but the temptation is there and I sometimes really just want to close my facebook account completely. And move to a cave in the mountains, Thoreau-style.