the final word

This will undoubtedly be the final cataloguing of the boy's words, as he is acquiring them so rapidly that it will soon defy my record keeping ability. I realise that other than K and the three Grands, I'm the only one who is interested in this, so if you are not them, feel free to shuffle along... 

Spoken words at 16 months (14 months adjusted), in addition to these words:

no (newly acquired and on high rotation, with accompanying full-body turn-away)
yes
more ('moo-ah')
please ('peas')
oops ('utz' as in klutz!) 
uh-uh (for anything he isn't allowed to touch)
wow! (said like a little Iowa corn farmer, thanks to...)
Libby (sounds like 'hippy', which our au pair happily accepts as a fair definition)
hot tea 
yummy
cup
honey ('nunny')
blueberry
apple
cheese
rusk
egg (he just pronounces the 'gg'... when he is learning words he often just pronounces the final syllable) 
Vegemite (ironically enough, said as 'mate')
eat
laundry (he really helped with it for the first time today, by passing me the nappies from the basket!)
nappy ('marpie')
pee
poo
potty
paper
booby ('beebee')
on (he'll sit by the door and put his shoes near his feet and say 'on', 'on' when he wants to go outside)
afternoon ('noon' - when Daddy gets home)
minute (as in 'just wait a minute' - sigh)
day
dark
green ('neen')
bumblebee ('mumbee')
snorkel ('mokbel')
boot
baby
rock
buouy
slippery
sandy
pit (for firepit or sandpit)
moon
garden
sunny ('nunny')
sunnies ('nunnies')
undies
eye
tiger
giddy-up
my
bathroom ('ba-mmm')
city
either (odd but he just started repeating it today)
music
that
hurts
drain ('narn')

Proud much? You may find me again in the comments supplementing with any words I have forgotten ;)

the trouble with ruts

After not knowing what to do with the other blog, I have kind of just given up without giving up. If you know what I mean. Too hard basket.

Sadly, I don't feel the love for the food blog thing anymore. I wish I did. But I mostly struggle to stay enthused with making beautiful nourishing food, let alone the all-consuming documenting of it. Probably because by the end of the day I am done, though the making of the adult dinner lies ahead. Also I think I spend too long making dinner (I have not really downgraded my standard of what is worthy of the 'dinner' descriptor since the boy arrived) and therein have grown to not really enjoy the process, because all I really want to do is sit down, spend some time with my beau and pour quantities of wine all over myself.

There are moments of spark though.

In the past fortnight I have made pumpkin and lentil burgers, vegie pasties (first time I have made shortcrust pastry since high school!), and a rad roasted beetroot salad with panfried beans, fetta and homegrown purslane. I recently made sourdough after a long lull (including making a new starter after our last au pair inadvertently binned my several-years-old starter >..<). And I smell meals with tomatoes in our future, courtesy our homegrown tomato glut.

When the householders urge me to get thy camera out, I dwell on the bad light and the prospect of picking up where I left off. You know that feeling that once you've let too much water go under the bridge?

Oh, and that brings me to thy camera. Has not seen light of day for many moons. My all-purpose lens is infirm. And it all got too much to carry a heavy baby, baby paraphernalia and a heavy camera when we went anywhere. And it is just so much easier to use the phone... thank goodness for the phone! Though I have been loving these posts and this (and her photography generally) and wanting to do so much more.

Reading, there is no time energy time mental coherence. I have a small stack of books and magazines purchased in quiet city-induced flurries of internal sunshine and hope. These get picked up intermittently and held for about three minutes and thirty seconds (including time spent discerning where I was up to after toddler has dislodged bookmark).
 
My hands miss knitting. My most 'recent' project - the boy's baby blanket (ho!) - is scrumpled somewhere in a dark cupboard after I backed myself into a corner I could not see clear of. And yet I have bought wool for future projects.

When I do get a moment, I either seize it for some physio exercises / yoga, get some chores done, or fluff around aimlessly because I don't have a project-that-I'm-not-totally-overwhelmed-by to get on with.

The trouble with ruts is that they are self-fulfilling.

I have high hopes though. I dream about blogging about creative stuff I am doing, without the technical difficulties that go along with creating stuff and blogging. Oh, utopian me!

I have resolved that rather than getting sucked into the nightly vaccuum of the lovely interwebs (but not actually doing anything productive on them because I'm exhausted, and going to bed way too late and waking up feeling hungover despite aforementioned quantities of wine being more occasional nowadays) I will spend my evenings creating, or if I'm too tired to create, relax. Seems simple. And obvious.

I have wondered whether I could morph the foodie blog into new terrain. You know, make it more about life generally. It seems like such a shame to let it lapse. I still occasionally get amazing emails and comments. Someone even offered to buy it! And did I mention the thing about being invited to have a few recipes featured in the ABC's Foodi iPad app? 

Perhaps I need to climb out of the food rut, and the photography rut, before I can get any traction on the blog rut. And probably, more generally, just start. I love this post about getting your creative spark back. 

Yes, I know this space is temporary. And this here, is my start.