xx amy

it’s half ari / half ami!!!!  still don’t know whether we made it to exhibit stage but the opening is on friday - so we figure we can create an experiment - we take clansos to art opening, or we take him to our favourite restuarant in byron "red, hot and green’.  we see how he goes - he’s coming up to a year now so if he can hang out - he’s cool to come out with us .  .  . otherwise it’s nanna or grandma and the cot little fella!

hope you like the buttons (conformed to coral piece) julie!

well, it’s been a crazy week like usual in ami and ari land (which is also a family website of ours www.amiandariland.zoomshare.com/ ) - and yes the life lives up to the name.  ari and i have many, many hats at the moment - that’s the only way we can function!! we’d both really like to be just doing what we really want to be doing - ari would be painting every day and exhibiting in top woollahra galleries and ultimately new york and around the world.  ami would be screenprinting (with up to 100 different designs that had been made into screens) onto metres of faric and wallpapers and ofcourse clothing.  but, alas, ari is working in the local video store and exhibiting in small galleries around byron, and i have two screens to use for printing - boo hoo!  so that’s how i’ve been feeling of late, sorry to winge, but  i have to just vent hey?  have to just get it out there.  but the good thing is that we did byron bay market on sunday (ari actually helps set up the market - he’s great at hunting down ‘those here and there jobs’), clansee and i rocked up at 7:30 am to find our ‘half stall’ to host some ‘paperdaisy’ getup, about 20 succulents mum had potted and a lot lof glasswear my nan had collected (bless). (i just can’t fit anymore glass and crystal into the place, it was all handed down to me because i like old things and it’s not ‘the style’ my mum and aunty are into - they’re more into ‘contemporary black and white minimal modern’ )  so i have about 10 crystal and glass salad cheese platters and salad bowls, 2 sets of crystal candal holders, even though i don’t really have candles, 4 sets of salt, sugar and pepper holders, 2 teasets, 2 cuttlery sets, about 6 coffee tables, 4 antique lamps, 20 vases - oh, and don’t forget those two (very cool), but utterly scary "the ring" resembeling mirrors we have in our bedroom (had to get ari to come to bed for a week before i could sleep alone - but i love them mirrors!!!!!!!!!). !!!!!  so, we are not contemporary / modern.   .   .   . but very senitmental. ( and quite scared of a black haired, very ‘hairy’ woman coming creaking out - all dead and like seaking revenge - i decided not to put a mirror in clansos’s room!!!).  so, we got a stall right at the entrance of the byron markets, after missing out on the stall ari had planned for me (the girl that got it also had a littleling and saw the shade, and well, puounced! so that was cool). but, man, it was so dusty, and just a crap market.  i’ve done quite a few markets in sydney and made quite a packet in just second hand clothes - where has craft love gone?  anyway, it’s known as a fickle market, and i did sell a few things and had lots and lots of lookers - so that’s probably a good thing.  decided to get my sewing out and to be a bit more experimental and also tackle womens fashion - ooooohhhh crossed fingers!!!!!!!!  let’s hope old costello will help out us struggling young families - you think? i’m not so sure .   .   .

xx amy

ooooooohhhhhhh! had a big shopping day with my mum, and aunty today - gee those girls are fit!!  they just keep going - and they run on a snif of an oily rag i tells thee!!  clansee and i had been up since 4:30 this morn, as he had woken for a feed at this time and then grizzled til 5, so i just let him have a little nibble more and cuddle up in our bed until 5:30.  so i suppose we were struggling from the beginning eeeekkkk! 

over to mums by 8am (after amy has numerous nervouse breakdowns deciding which jeans with which top as this is the standard in closet  at the mo’- ari monster grumbling, but supportive).  got to the folkes on time - yay!  mum must leave at 8:30 and not 8:15 as she fears the school traffic of the gold coast.  oh, did i say we were on the gold coast?  the place just scares me a bit.  i went to LA when i was 4 and can only remember disneyland ofcourse (and wetting the bed, sorry anty kare!  who was sharing a bed - eeeeeK!  and also mum and my aunty getting free cocktails when my dad walked a golf course.  and .  .  .  . an upside down ice cream cone with a face .   .   .)  anyway, i think the gold coast is spread out like LA would be.  so, um, yeah, we have a good run up and get to my aunty’s for coffee - the third for me today but i’m quite imune now.   good chats and off to the shops!  we do myer, mum and keryn want to do the revlon counter for new lippie and mascara (i don’t wear a lot of make up - just a bit of eye color and lip when i go out,  and tend to find i slip away and dream of just wearing a hint of chanel or peek of dior sweety), get back to the girls and they’ve made multiple lippie purchases and scored themselves a free bag of goodies.   .   . which they give to me, which is so cool (but i don’t tell them i like the packaging bag more than the contents - mum says she ‘really needed that extra lip pencil - "they come in handy,  and i get a free goodie". )  i like her thinking, and i also like the thinking of the revlon marketing team too .  .   .  ok off, i briefly admire clinique and ski II and we dissapear into the mass small sub-continent they call "pacific fair"!!!!!!  off to find clansee singlets and tights, as i mentioned to ‘the girls’ that was the only possible thing he needed at this stage.

we end up spending most of our day in target, kmart, and best and less finding clansee about a bag full of singlets and a bag full of tights, as family does he he he.  so clansee is set for our trip to melbourne in may - few.  the other place we spent most of our time in was toys ‘r’ us.  you know it was fun to see the little ‘thomas the tank’ engine and lovely wooden toy selection they have .  .  . but i’m sorry, the ADHD crisis has doubled the percentage in the last 10 years and man, i felt on edge leaving that store!!!!  the amount of stimulation in those stores is just tooo much!  i hope i don’t sound like a bad mummy, but i put a ban on too many electronic toys.  i allowed "the girls" to buy an abbicus and a set of wooden skittles!  i was just reflecting the other day (watching sunrise actually), one of their reporters was at the ‘currumbin bird sanctuary’.  all the rides and kids stuff they have there now is insane .  .   ‘i remember in my day, when all i needed was a dam lorekeet to sit on my head and, my goodness!  i was the happiest 6 year old in the universe!’  but as ari keeps telling me, our kids are going to be on the computer at the age of 2 or 3 and will be programming our ‘dvd", not video,  in like a month.  so i’m trying to chill, but i’m still saying a HUGE NO !!!!! to plastation 3 ARI!!! 

on another note, i’ve decided i want to paint all my furniture black, some a nice shiny black, so that’s my project this week.  and also entering our combined art work ari and i are doing for a marine exhibition in byron.  he’s done a painting of julian rocks and i’ve created a sculpture out of my nannas old button collection to look like coral underneath (we‘re using lights to create an effect . . .  .  just hoping it’s not too crafty pretentious), but i think i may just worry about things a little too much - shikes!  my mind never stops, it’s alway’s onto something, but that’s just me i suppose.  i’ll shut it off now and watch some reality tv - ‘i know, i’m a victim too’ : (  it gets a lot of us, even me who is only a season 2 watcher of the now ‘BB’.  sorry chickies!!  i think it’s just because my best frient kiri and i don’t haunt the bars of newtown demanding martinis anymore - i just love other peoples social stress?
xx ames

well it’s amazing what a good haircut can do for your self esteem!!  i’ve been feeling a little erk lately as i’ve had this limp dead hair that’s been really effected by the breast feeding and it’s been over a year since i’ve been to a real hair dresser!!  i don’t call my snips at my fringe and cut off pony tails and then fix ups proper hair dressing.  so with lack of sleep, my sewing scissors and a vogue mag under my arm i headed off to the bathroom to style myself into a frenzy this morning - good idea?  my shaggy bob turned into a shaggy dog and i decided i deserved a ‘proper’ hair cut.  but then, frantic that i’d have to wait until monday with my hair like a pooch - erk no thanks,  i finally got into a lovely hair dresser who uses yummy organic products mmmmmm!  she was funky and gave me a make over!  i’ve gone from diy bathroom mess to 1930’s garconne inspired bob!  thank goodness!  i feel youngish and freeish again - yay!!

my mum came down and hung out with us for the afternoon which was fab.  the only thing ari pointed out was how similar our hairstyles were!  aaaaaagggghh!  they’re no that similar, but kind of-ish  he he he.  .    .  i don’t mind.  it’s great that we’ve moved back to byron for this year to spend with my folkes, i’m having a great time with them.  i’d been in sydney for  8years and only had little visits with them, so we’re all enjoying the reconnecting - going to be hard to move again though ..   .  . .. .

another very close person in my life is my aunty keryn who is brilliant.  she looked after my nanna and pa, and then just nanna for many many years, she’s even become an aged care worker and has just got a new job.  we’ve alway’s been very close (she’s my mums sister), and doesn’t have any of her own kids, so i’m pretty much hers too!  we laugh a lot together, she’s sarcastic and funny.

i’ve included a photo (that’s a few years old and at chrissie) of my little fam on my side, my nanna past away a couple of months ago.

xx ames

idon’t know if anyone else has gone through this experience, but since having clansee i’ve turned into a sobbing mess!!  when i was a kid i used to cry in movies at the drop of a hat (i wasn’t allowed to watch ET until i was about 7 as i just got too upset  - and i really did!).  benji was also out of the question and the one with the labrodore that gets rabies (ol’ yella?), i practically needed a sedative!!  but then as i ‘ve gotten older the waterworks have stopped - up until now!  i thought during my pregnancy the small outbursts when i saw a sad story on the news it was just the crazy amounts of hormones, but now i’m not so sure .  .  . i’d just recently started watching ‘love my way’ on dvd and was really enjoying it, until  i got to a certain episode and well, if you’ve seen it you’ll understand what i’m talking about - i haven’t been able to watch anymore - traumatised!!  ari came home to a sobbing mess on the couch.  i even had outbursts of anger at the writers!

another thing that’s changed is my angsty will power - such as ooh, i don’t know, watching poxie presenters on a sunny morning show!  since being pregnant and waking at around 4am and watching american morning programs and then tuning into kochie and mel on sunrise, i’ve been feeling a bit old and boring of late.  ari and i were talking about it the other day saying,"yeah, it’s the one thing that makes me feel old".  i wonder why this is?  it’s not like we’re the only (almost 30 somethings!!) that watch this show.  many funky people we know tune in for that cereal and coffee  watching session every day.  maybey i’m just being paranoid?  i’ve had one of those exhausted (crazy mum) weeks where i think everyday is turining into one big day.  i cut myself some slack though, cause my waking hour for the past 1and a half years has been around 4:30-5!  with wee clansee waking between 4:30 and 5:30 and me being an insomniac pregnanct potato!  ari and i tried to share the early waking, but he has type 1 diabetes (really badly) and really needs that extra 2hrs sleep - so crazy mumma is in that groundhog mode.

anyway, if these are the only fogie things i can think i’m doing (besides pushing a pram i have a complex about, but i think that’s more to do with me wanting to carry clansee everywhere but now he’s too heavy), things musn’t be too bad hey?

well, i’ve decided to stard my baby clothes at the byron bay and bangalow markets and on this website - so i will create a page soon to let you see my stuff.  i’ll also have my website together shortly.

xx amy