Sponsored by Nuffnang.

There may be trouble ahead.
You know, the dust infested kind. Because come hell or high water (or in my case probably both) we are moving back to Casa de Chaos this weekend. And the OH MY GOD Christmas is four weeks away and not one gift is bought or wrapped kind of trouble, also known as anxiety.
There may be teardrops to shed
when in a few short weeks I get to cuddle a precious new niece or nephew, because quite frankly, new babies ALWAYS make me cry.
Now like many people I love being able to turn my radio up and sing loudly in my car. I love cranking up the sound and just dancing my heart out much to the embarrassment of my loved ones.
And it's a huge thrill to me when people write to me and ask me if I'd like to try something. And when it is something sound related well that's pretty much nirvana right there. I had a delightful email from a company called x-mini asking me if I was interested in trialling their speakers for review. Was I ever!
So a Fed-Ex parcel arrived the other day containing 2 sets of the dinkiest little speakers I ever did see. And one set of them was HOT PINK.
They're actually called Capsule Speakers and even when we've been working at the hovel with no power I've been able to play music from them off my laptop. And trust me, cleaning is much more fun when you've got your own boom box in tow.

The one thing that annoyed me was that Husband promptly pilfered one set to take to use at work. But the awesome thing was that apart from the fact that the speakers themselves are ridiculously portable, they are actually really good. And Husband who considers himself somewhat of a sound connoisseur pronounced them "excellent."
So really this review has proved a bonus because my Christmas list has been simplified hugely. I fully intend to place an order for speakers for most family members this year.
Because they're just adorable.

As a child I loved reading. Nothing made me happier than curling up on my bed munching on a Granny Smith's apple and reading a book. Thanks to my parents, my tastes were broad and encompassing of all genres. They still are. I don't like Granny Smith apples anymore, and sadly, my time for reading is significantly diminished, but the love remains.
As a result I've always seen authors as my version of celebrities. They write stories! They get someone to like them and publish them. Ten years of English teaching has given me a great deal of insight into the (often) torturous process of writing that writers endure. And secretly I always hoped I could be one.
A couple of years I threw in a teaching job which was making me profoundly unhappy. I had a baby and started working from home working with kids in an environment which was infinitely happier, and better for me and my family. More recently I started writing articles. I'm also working on fulfilling a promise I made to one of my brother's at a Sydney pub last year about writing one chapter of a book this year.
What has stunned me is how extraordinarily supportive and encouraging the "writing community" is. I've had advice and guidance from anyone I've shyly asked. And I've been introduced to some really gifted and talented people along the way. Recently I read two books by people I "know" and who have both been amazingly generous with their encouragement.
Introducing Kylie Ladd and Mia Freedman.
For those of you who don't know, Ladd (in essays, I always get students to refer to their authors by their surnames because they don't know the author) is a prolific writer and novelist and is constantly commenting on my blog posts offering advice and encouragement.
Freedman is one of Australia's foremost journalists, columnist, author, blogger and media consultant and earlier this year very generously allowed me to be a guest poster on her website.
So recently, I read their books. I must admit I was really apprehensive about doing this because I worried I wouldn't like their books. I really admire these women and I didn't want it to change how I felt about them.
So how did it go?
Ladd's book "After the Fall" centres around 2 couples and how their worlds are shattered when infidelity is bought into play. Ladd constructed such vivid characters that it wasn't inconceivable for me to feel as if I may have known them in real life. Interestingly, whilst I didn't feel particularly warm towards any of the main characters, they were so utterly plausible I wasn't able to put the book down because I needed to know what happened to them next. I loved the way she created the minor characters in the text, as people I could relate to so completely. In my (vivid) imagination they were the roles I identified most closely with and could see myself as comforting the main characters at key points in the novel. I suspect, though I haven't asked her, that is exactly what she intended.
Ladd has a way with words, with language that makes me wildly envious of her. She is a Master crafts(wo)man in this respect. I kept making mental notes of words and phrases that will probably turn up in blog posts and articles for the next few months as a result!
It's a gripping book, and I was turning the page to finish it long after my bedroom light should have been turned out.
Freedman's book "Mama Mia" is a memoir. And let me say I am awed at how much she has crammed into it in such a short space of time. A few pages in I found myself scrambling for my notebook to jot down notes about what to do or not to do in pursuing my writing career.
Freedman is disarmingly honest and writes engagingly about her adventures and mishaps, on her climb up the ladder to becoming an Editor and her foray into television. At page 60 where she talks about freelancing from home writing for many of our glossies I must admit to a wild surge of envy. That, at the moment is my DREAM JOB. But Freedman makes me think its possible. I just need to hone my chutzpah. What I particularly loved was her honesty in acknowledging how motherhood irrevocably changed her viewpoints on certain issues. So much so she altered her career path. Freedman and I probably differ on alot of issues but I think we'd have a really enjoyable discussion about them anyway. Of particular poignancy for me was the story of her baby that she lost at sixteen weeks and delivered at nineteen weeks. Freedman writes about this time in a way that makes you ache for her grief and at the same time highlights that loss doesn't discriminate. For me the beauty of Freedman's memoir was that she is infinitely relatable and yet (for me at least) incredibly inspirational.

So I read these books. I then went and bought another copy of each of them. I did that because I think if you haven't read them already then you should!
If you'd like to win one, then after making sure you are a follower of my blog, leave a comment telling me what your favourite book was growing up.
I'll leave comments open and draw a winner on Friday.

ETA if you've already read these books I'd LOVE to hear what you thought of them too, so please leave a comment even if you aren't entering the giveaway :)

In the mid-1990s, I was an angst-ridden teenager, going through the grunge phase of my life. I had a low-life boyfriend, and my life revolved around the happenings in school. How would we buck the system today? Who was sleeping around? Who was doing drugs? Who had been in the unenviable position of arriving home at 1.30AM having thrown up half a bottle of peach schnapps, realising she'd

This post is about toothpaste. I know! Steady-as-she-blows! The topic of toothpaste can hardly be said to be cutting edge blog material, but I have made a discovery and I must share it.First I would like to cast our collective mind back through the green mists of time, to when I was a young chickadee. I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog that I suffered through extensive dental issues*

There's a common misconception about baseball players: that those who toiled before Andy Messersmith's monumental free agency ruling did so simply out of 'love of the game.' That because they didn't make millions of dollars, the players were happier and the game was simpler and more innocent. This couldn't be farther from the truth. The fact of the matter is that men played this game not because they loved it but because their skill at it allowed them to escape going down the mines, or puddling steel, or being farmers, or anything else.

Oh sure, there were those within the ranks who did love the game, but it's always been about making enough money to stave off the inevitable. Were it not about money then why did players like Satchel Paige jump mid contract for better pay? Why did guys like Koufax and Drysdale try to negotiate with O'Malley together? And what about John Montgomery Ward and the short-lived Players League? With rights came more access to money and with money came a few more years the average player (with no other sellable skill) could support his family. To suggest otherwise is to view the past through beer goggles.

Mike Shropshire's The Last Real Season presents just such a beer- (amongst other controlled substances) goggled view. Which is too bad, because it's an angle that feels out of place within an otherwise strong narrative. The book is an account of the Texas Rangers' mediocre 1975 season, told from the point of view of the sometimes drug user/definite alcoholic who also happens to be the Rangers' beat reporter from The Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Shropshire). It's an enjoyable, if somewhat predictable, everybody's-a-character, no-holds-barred tellin'-it-like-it-is diary from the same mold as Bouton's Ball Four and Lyle's Bronx Zoo. Since this was the mid-Seventies, it was also inevitable that Shropshire should riff his prose in a 'yeah I did it, so what?' Hunter S Thompson vein.

The only thing that holds this book back is its assertion that major leaguers from 1975 were 'having more fun' because they were getting paid squat (in comparison to post-free agency figures). Hogwash. According to the US Census for 1975, the average yearly salary for a man between 24 and 35 was somewhere around $11,500. Shropshire says that the average ballplayer salary in 1975 was $27,600. Though it seems like ballplayers weren't doing all that bad, remember that their salary was for only half the calendar year. And with many players not having much of a life outside of playing baseball, the off-season employment choices were most likely slim. So to suggest that players were anything less than obsessed with getting paid as much as possible for their services is ludicrous.

But like I said, if you disassociate the narrative from this angle, Shropshire's engaging off-the-cuff you-are-there style shines through. This should help The Last Real Season stand out from the current crop of anecdotal baseball biographies from the sport's former insiders. Having a raging, booze-fueled Billy Martin as one of its protagonists doesn't hurt, either.



The Last Real Season, by Mike Shropshire, comes out in May.
From Grand Central Publishing.

Resolutions are something I always make, and without fail I break them too. This year, I'm taking a different approach; one that is more in line with my new policy of not becoming overwrought with despair at the notion that I have once again not done something I said I would do for myself.This year, I am merely recommending to myself that I will follow certain new pathways to enlightenment.

Say it in the style of Jack Bauer: DAMN IT!!**American Idol Spoiler Alert for Kiwis**I accidentally discovered that Melinda has gone home.Even if you despise American Idol and all that it stands for, I beg that you watch this video. The sound runs slightly behind the vision (YouTube's fault - I assure you, that's no lipsynching) and you can fast forward through the first 40 seconds involving

LaKisha went home instead of Blake, and I am bereft. I had predicted a LaKisha-Melinda finale, and I'm never happy when I'm proven wrong.So now we are stuck with Blake and his fake-trendy self for another week. His 'Unique' Selling Point is wearing thin, and his clothes get odder as the weeks go by. I don't actively dislike him, but I don't think he's nearly as cool as he thinks he is (or,

It's time for this week's sporadically present and usually late American Idol post. Say it with me: only three more weeks!Bon Jovi week. May I say that though I have always been more of a Guns 'n Roses fan, musically, there can be few men on the planet who have aged as well as Jon Bon Jovi. Cowboy asserts that Jon has been drinking at the botox saloon recently, but I prefer to think that some

The grand finale is still around nineteen years away. So for now, we've got to make do with watching the also-rans (ie anyone who isn't named Melinda). Melinda: She was so good I actually wiped away a tear.LaKisha: This week demonstrated why I don't think she can win.Jordin: Dreadful, boring song. Also, her shirt looked like a tent.Blake: At last! I've figured out who Blake reminds me

Another week, another travesty with the name Sanjay written all over it. Thank dog for Lulu, who brightened the show up no end.O'Brien: Love the song, and am growing to like Phil more.Timberlite: He'd do much better if he opened his mouth more. [10 word amnesty required: I've never seen anyone try to sing without moving a single facial muscle except a raised eyebrow and a cheesy smirk. The

Spoiler Alert. If you are the only person alive yet to read The Da Vinci Code (I know, I'm exaggerating), then don't despair: it should take you about 5 mins to read and understand everything in there. Then you can get on with reading my review.*****************************Literary Interlude.I have read enough high quality fiction to know that The Da Vinci Code does not belong in that category