**Warning: Now with added swears**

This Champagne Life

The Hits today are a little different.

Usually I try to think up a list of things that I’ve had fun doing, going to, or being with, in the week gone by. Maybe even give you a mini-review of something that made my synapses sing.

This week has been a crazy, rollercoaster with all the ups and downs that such a ride implies. There were more ups than downs, but the downs were spectacular in their depths. So I guess DeMartini might be right, in that everything must balance out in order to stay in the light.

At the end of this exhilarating ride of a week, I am left with a feeling of thankfulness and, dare I say it, gratitude. Gratitude at this wonderful experiment of a life, where there is love, laughter, karaoke, dancing, family, friends, meaningful work, support, chocolate, sunshine, peace, creativity, teamwork and tacos.

I have so much to celebrate, in a life so full of wonderful connections and opportunities to learn.

So here’s cheers with a fancy bottle of Veuve, to a grouse bloody life, where I can still go out and rock the stage to a bit of Rod with one of my chicks, have a young and handsome totally inebriated man boy young enough to be my son try and pick me up (not in the carrying way- in the rude way), and then come home to a house brimming with energy and actual verve, and the absolute loves of my life.

If that isn’t a week of hits, then I don’t know what is.

And if the week passed you by in a bit of a blur, like mine did, there’s always the best cat in the world. I call him “The fuck is this? cat” for I think it is, in fact his real name. I love how shocked he is by the world (or a fly).

Happy Weekend. May yours be full of things that surprise the fuck out of you.

…From The Ashers xx

What were your hits this week?

To save you doing that Facebook thingy, just jot some down here.

In a shocking turn of events, it appears that I have nothing to blog about today.  I might have mentioned once or twice that I’m working full time at the moment, and my poor little fingers have been worked to the bone. Which makes typing an interesting proposition. Coupled with that: I only had the morning with the kids, so they didn’t really have a chance to do anything funny to pass on to you.

The cat is asleep, Nath is snoring and Casino Royale is on the telly and I am, quite frankly, beyond inspiration. So it appears, dear RRs that there will be no blog today.

Before the snore-a-thon began, I did ask Nath what I should blog about, and he suggested a chat about things that money can’t buy. So far I can only think of intangible things like my soul and possibly health, but money could give you some different options on the health thing, so I guess it’s not entirely true.  As for my soul, I could be persuaded to sell that off in exchange for the house I want overlooking Little Cove.

Little Cove, Little Cove, my soul for a cove

I am reminded of a bit of repartee I had with my Anatomy lecturer in second year. We were discussing who we would or, in my case, would not sleep with for money (it was around the time of ‘The Colour of Money’).

Him: Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?

Me: (Checking out his weird anatomy-lab scented hands and Ned Kelly-not in fashion then-beard) …Umm, yes, I guess…

Him: Well then, would you sleep with me for ten bucks?

Me: (Aghast) No way, what do you think I am?

Him: We’ve already determined that, now we’re just haggling over the price.

So I guess it’s true what you say about breathing in the pickling fluid (it makes you nuts, in case you haven’t heard).

I thought I should leave you with one more thing… I went to a Problogger seminar on the weekend and one of the speakers shared this clip.  It’s funny if you are on Instagram.

And on that note, I bid you adieu.

I hope your pelvic floor muscles are holding up to the comedy of the blog today.

…From The Ashers xx

On the way to school, the Evil Geniuses One and Two play a game where one tries to make the other laugh.  The other is supposed to remain stony-faced, and often arguments ensue over whether there was a change in expression.  Usually once one of them finds a mirth trigger, they just do it over and over (and over) again until the other one nearly pisses their pants.

Today Liam found a trip wire.  He made up a song that went a little like this:

I’m a magical unicorn, Flying through the sky, Pooping out rainbows, And shooting butterflies.

Which Coco found hilarious.  Of course.  Poo and shooting.  What’s not to love?

And that got me thinking about something I saw a little while ago on Smaggle‘s website.  Smaggle has a Kickstarter campaign going, where she is doing ‘Silly things for a bus’.  We pledge some money, and she will film herself doing something silly, in order to raise money for a bus for the special development school she works at.  So I told the kids about a few of the things she is willing to do, chiefly: to go into an ice-cream shop buy an ice-cream, ask them if they believe in unicorns and before they answer, smoosh the cone on her forehead, and gallop out of the shop.

The kids thought this was so entertaining they laughed the rest of the way to school.  I’m not telling if anyone suffered hilarity incontinence, but I will reveal that Coco did say, “Stop it Mummy, a piece of wee is coming out.”

As they were being dumped getting out of the car they asked if they could buy that unicorn-silly-thing with their pocket money.

My heart almost busted out of me, with pride.  And then I remembered they spent all their money on Pokemon cards last week.  So guess who is now buying a silly unicone ice-cream stunt?

Turns out they may not be so evil after all.  Seems they are geniuses though.

Check out Smaggle’s thingy  HERE.  Maybe you’d like to make her do a silly thing for a bus too. 

Random Unicat is not happy. No money raised.

…From The Ashers xx

If you follow many Aussie blogs you’ll probably already know there was a Problogger conference this weekend on the Gold Coast.

Surfers: The view from The QT

There are people more experienced and more savvy than me who can tell you how it all went down, and I don’t suppose you’d be all that interested in what I learned over the weekend anyway, but I do want to tell you two things, both consisting of equal and opposite energy for me, just like Newton told us it would be.

Firstly, at the end of Day One I was completely bereft.

I thought this was the most soul-destroying seminar I’d ever been to.

Problogger is, as I’m sure you’ll have figured out, about monetising your blog.  Being paid to blog.  I’ve been blogging for just over a year, and I had an idea that being paid to do this might be something I could do.  But as the day wore on, it became patently obvious that I don’t have a clue what I’m doing here, with respect to earning buck$ for blogging.  I don’t have a niche, a specific tone, or a message.  I don’t provide anything useful, nor do I solve any of your problems.  I don’t have products or ideas to sell you. I’m a personal blogger, and that means this space is all about me.  Not really the kind of thing that lends itself to paid content or advertising.  Two other things also became obvious: I have no clue what all the techy stuff is about (SEO, what?) and being a paid blogger appears to involve a shit-load of work.  So two things I do.not.like appear to be important.

So I almost ditched the whole remainder of the seminar to quaff Cosmopolitans by the pool.

Some would say this is a pattern of mine, but I’d tell them to shut up and mind their own.

Luckily, I was there with a mate who knows me better than I know myself most times, and she pretty much forbade me to miss a single Saturday session.  Which was a good thing, for redemption was just around the corner, in the guise of Matthew Michalewicz, heralding the second big thing I needed to know.

He reminded me of many things that I needed a nudge with, and most of all, the concept that when we say we can’t do something, what we really mean, is that the motivation isn’t great enough.  Yet.  I may have said I could not learn all the computery things required to run this blog properly, but as Matthew would say; if my whole family would die if I didn’t figure it out, I probably could.  And fast.

And of course, as always, a concept that applies to you in one area of your life, will cross over into others.  This “I can’t” mantra doesn’t only apply to my bloggy life, but to my work, my family, my finances.  I can.  I just need compelling leverage.  Which also involves going back to the original idea, the thing I’m saying I can’t do, and double check that it is something that I really want, and that it isn’t just some notion that I’ve grabbed from the air, or from someone else’s bag of tricks.  The difference between something I should do and something I want to do.

Sometimes it’s good to get a whack of perspective when I’m being a big whining baby.

And a free book.

Thanks Matthew xx

Is there anything you’ve been saying you can’t do (that you claim you want to do)?

What do you do or say to yourself to get your mojo back?

…From The Ashers xx

I love Surfers Paradise.

I love the buildings that are trying to reach the clouds, and keep the beach a secret.  I love the lurid pink neon, and the noise of traffic and tension.  I love the seedy bars, and Ripley’s Believe It Or Not? and the smell of salt and carbon monoxide mixed together.  I love the tattoos, and the bustling energy, and the women who look twenty-two from behind and sixty-five in the face.

But I don’t love the cafes.  And that’s okay, because I don’t come to the Goldy for fine food and wine, I come for fun, and a taste of something a little wilder, and little bit more edgy than my perfectly arranged seaside town.  I come for a little bit of naughty.

Today I found a little gem that I didn’t expect.  Nestled between restaurants in the Soul Sea Temple complex is a special slice of Melbourne-Up-North.  Complete with a roof of tiles that could be from Flinders Street Station and walls of concrete that could be from the City Square, is Cafe Elston.

Cafe Elston

Industry lights

The staff are so pretty they could have been ripped out of an ad for Beat Magazine, with their carefully coiffed hair and beards and freshly inked forearms.  I could have spent most of the afternoon trying to read their cutely colourful body art, but there were Bennys and cheese boards to be eaten, Espresso Martinis to drink, and cupcakes to gorge on.  Even the beer list was something to savour, with ice cold White Rabbit and My Wife’s Bitter to slake a karaoke croaky throat.

Botanical Benny

It was love at first sight when I saw Cafe Elston, which bloomed into true love when I was presented with the delicate blossoms of dishes created by some arty chef in the kitchen.  I suspected they were constructed by a mincy little pixie but when I glimpsed him a couple of times during my extended stay, the incongruous was almost jarring: tattooed and blokey and more at home at a Nirvana concert than making fiddly floral food art.

Cheese Board

Butterscotch Cupcakes

Thanks Cafe Elston.  You have managed walk a fine line between urban and garden, with surprising prettiness and cheeky Surfers fun.  A playful slice of Paradise that has an attitude I want to hang around with.

Perhaps the Gold Coast is shedding some of her slightly tattered glittery clothes and acting her age.  I like it.

Have you been to the Gold Coast lately?

Where is your fave place to hang out on the Goldy?

…From The Ashers xx